CARRBORO -- The flailing economy could put delay plans to build four five-story buildings at the Cat's Cradle/ArtsCenter shopping center on Main Street.

The project, after years of discussion, got the green light from the Board of Aldermen on Tuesday night in a unanimous vote.

But developer Laura Van Sant said it will be impossible to secure funding during the crurrent economic turmoil.

"If you went to a bank right now and asked for a loan for a project this size, you'd get nowhere," she said Thursday.

"Whether that gets cleared up in weeks or months or years remains to be seen. We hope this credit crunch is something that's temporary and won't hold up this project."

Developers hope to break ground next on 300 East Main Street next year. The first phase, including the hotel and 18,500 square feet of retail/restaurant space, is scheduled to open by 2010.

Plans call for a 150-room hotel, a parking deck and tens of thousands of square feet of retail and restaurant space.

Aldermen got thrown a slight curve ball Tuesday night when Van Sant told them the hotel might be a Hampton Inn and Suites, not a Hilton Garden Inn as had been discussed.

Alderman Jacquelyn Gist was not pleased, responding to the revelation with an incredulous, "What?"

"Hampton is a couple steps down from a Hilton Garden Inn," she said.

"I haven't seen any Hamptons that I would like to see in Carrboro."

Van Sant called the hotelier of choice a "non-issue" because the exterior design of the hotel won't change other than the sign out front.

"Maybe the thread count on the sheets will be a little bit different," Van Sant said. "But Hampton Inn is hardly a base motel."

Manish Atma, president of Atma Hotel Group which will operate the lodging, said he's still negotiating and will know within 90 days which hotel will go into the Carrboro location. It would be the town's first hotel.

The project's size has been the main sticking point for many residents.

"I'm just concerned the first thing you see walking down Franklin Street into Carrboro is the giant back side of a hotel," Nicole Amundsen, a clinical social worker and therapist with an office in Carr Mill Mall, said Tuesday night.

"It just doesn't seem aesthetically what we have in the town. It's that giant looming big brick box at the center that just seems to really contradict everything else in Carrboro."

But Jon Wilner, executive director of the ArtsCenter, wonders what people are clinging to.

"Is this strip mall that we're sitting in, is this Carrboro?" Wilner said Thursday.

"I'm a homeowner also in Carrboro, and I'd like some of the tax burden taken off of me. This is exactly the kind of thing Carrboro needs."

Gist said she wanted to vote against it. But she said the developers had met conditions of town ordinances.

"My obligation is to enforce the letter of the ordinance as it stands and not as I'd like it to be," she said.

"For me to vote against this because it goes against what I want would make me no different than leaders who disobey laws that I think should be upheld."

Van Sant said there's much more work to be done besides waiting for the credit crunch to subside. That includes getting final architectural approval from the town.

"But we're excited to get this one piece at least behind us," she said.