That's the question some are asking after one of the biggest projects to hit the town came to a public hearing Tuesday night.

Only a handful of residents spoke. Most praised the project, which they said would bring more tax dollars and excitement to the town.

But one speaker, a couple of UNC professors who wrote the mayor, and at least one alderwoman think the four, five-story buildings planned for the ArtsCenter/Cat's Cradle shopping center don't fit in.

"I think it's becoming really clear how huge this is, and they are looking to take advantage of every square inch they can fill," Alderwoman Jacquie Gist said Wednesday.

"It is not Carrboro," she said. "Just because you stand up there and say it is doesn't make it so." Main Street Properties has held public meetings for several years. Nearly 100 people attended one meeting at the Century Center.

Partner Laura Van Sant said the fact that few people attended the public hearing suggests the community is comfortable with the local developers and their project.

"This isn't being done by six folks coming in from out of town," she said. But one of the buildings, a 150-room hotel, has been designed by an out-of-town architect. The Atma Hotel Group, which plans to open a Hilton Garden Inn, used an architect approved by Hilton Hotels, said president Manish Atma.

Looking at sketches of the brick, box-like structure during Tuesday's hearing, resident Gary Wallach asked the developers to try again.

"Carrboro is an incredibly wonderful creative community," Wallach said. "I look at this building, and there's nothing creative about it."

"This doesn"t say Carrboro to me."


Little character?

The two UNC political science professors who wrote Mayor Mark Chilton agreed.

"The buildings as pictured in the plan appear to have little or no distinctive character," said Gary Marks and Liesbet Hooghe.

"We can understand the concern of the town to increase its tax base," they said. "But we would hope that we could do better than holiday inn style buildings."

Alderman Dan Coleman walked along Main and Boyd streets last week and said he still doesn't have a good idea how the project will look from that side.

"As you enter Carrboro from the east, once your eyes move past Domino's, you are greeted by the modest church, the somewhat quaint and nicely landscaped Nice Price building, and the very unique design of the Bleeker building (also nicely landscaped), all very much conveying the sense of Carrboro as many understand it," Coleman wrote in an e-mail to the town manager and fellow board members. "My concern is that the proposed buildings will overshadow and make a stark contrast to that vista."

Architect Jim Spencer, who's designing the East Main Street project except for the hotel, said the developers will consider the comments from the hearing and could make changes to their design before they return to the Board of Aldermen this month.


Local architect

Spencer is a local professional. He designed Chapel Hill Fire Station No. 5 near Southern Village and was working on potential designs for the Carrboro site even before he joined Main Street Properties.

He designed the Main Street project with a wide, central plaza that continues the pedestrian connection to the Weaver Street Market lawn diagonally across the street. The chimney on the building closest to the old railroad depot at Carr Mill echoes a locomotive smokestack.

"It's got tall buildings, which Carrboro said it wanted," said Van Sant. "But when you"re out on the street you're not going to be aware of the fifth floor."

Spencer said he designed the project to connect to its environment. He used simple materials like wood, brick and stucco and included exposed steel and other metal to reflect the area's railroad past.

This week's criticism has more to do with size than aesthetics, he said.

"There are no tall buildings in Carrboro, so that's something I think there"s some degree of fear about," Spencer said.

"But the Board of Aldermen decided some years ago the only way to get density or the tax base they want is to go up," he said, "and I happen to agree with them."

The Board of Aldermen approved five-story buildings by a 6-1 vote in 2003. Gist cast the lone dissent and doesn't think today"s board would have supported the policy. The strongest supporters are no longer on the board.

Alderwoman Joal Hall Broun, who did vote for taller buildings, said Carrboro needs to grow up, not out, and encourage more business to ease middle-income homeowners' tax burden.

"It's very difficult to maintain diversity," she said. "If you have two extremes -- the very poor, who need assistance, and the very rich who don't need assistance -- you really do need to look at what's happening in the middle."

But Broun said she's not ready to say what she thinks about 300 East Main Street.

Or even whether it's Carrboro enough.

What does the question even mean, when Carrboro has mill houses, Carr Mill Mall, the wood and brick of the 100 block of Main Street and suburban ranch houses heading out of town?

"That's a very good question," Broun said. "And that"s really a question people have to ask for themselves."