Three days apart, the Chapel Hill Town Council and the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees approved a 50-page contract that will guide the university's development of Carolina North over the next 20 years. The agreement enables UNC to construct 3 million square feet of buildings on 133 acres near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive.

One day, six-story buildings will line the west side of MLK Boulevard at least from the current Municipal Drive to Estes Drive. Brick sidewalks, low stone walls, street trees and the entrance to a 120-foot-wide central greenway will give that stretch the look of East Franklin Street near McCorkle Place.

More traffic lights and new lanes will appear on MLK and Estes Drive to accommodate more buses and cars to carry commuters to and from the new campus. A new bike patch will connect Carolina North to the main campus. Two- to four-story buildings will line Estes Drive, with tree buffers to shield nearby homes.

Though the agreement only covers 20 years, UNC plans to build 8 million square feet on 228 acres over 50 years.

All of this is a long way off, as private partner Alexandria Real Estate Equities hasn't even broken ground on the first Carolina North building, an Innovation Center aimed at turning university research into marketable products.

The Town Council approved the Innovation Center earlier this year, before the campus master plan, but university officials have said the lagging economy has stalled construction.

"I don't think we know precisely when it will be built," Chancellor Holden Thorp said this week.

Eventually, the building will have about 80,000 square feet on three levels. Much of it will be flexible office space with some science laboratories built in. It will have 214 parking spaces on 8 acres, one small piece of the 937-acre Horace Williams tract.

The Innovation Center will sit at the corner of MLK and Municipal Drive and is designed to catch the eye with its atrium and solar panels on the roof. Both features are on display by design, an attempt by the university to emphasize its commitment to sustainability and environmentally friendly design.

Overall, the campus will aim to absorb more carbon emissions than it produces, relying on 300 acres of permanent open space and buildings certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

Town Council member Ed Harrison, an environmental planner by trade, celebrated the conservation land as "some of the most protected open space that you can have."

The Carolina North forest is a popular recreational area for runners and mountain-bikers, and the potential to develop parts of it drew heated opposition from community leaders.

"I'm just really glad with how we came together on that," said Thorp. "I thought that that was a Gordian knot that we weren't going to untie. ... If you're a runner, you're still going to be running forever."

The development agreement also limits construction on an additional 408 acres to infrastructure such as roads but no buildings for the next 50 years. The conservation lands and limited-development areas surround the Carolina North Campus to the north and west, crossing into the town of Carrboro.

"For years, I wondered, 'How the heck are we going to get this done, because it is so complex? How are we going to get a deal that serves everyone's interest?'" said council member Bill Strom. "The atmospherics aligned. I believe that it does create the right mix of opportunity and oversight for both the university and the town. ... Supporting UNC's growth in the long run is the right thing to do."

jesse.deconto@nando.com or 932-8760