A Texas-based developer has asked Chapel Hill to rezone a 3-acre stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard for up to 310 apartments and ground-floor retail, just over a year after the town approved a fully affordable housing project on the very same land. SMN ATX Investments LLC filed the application Aug. 31, and unlike the plan it could displace, only a fraction of the new units would be priced within reach of lower-income renters.
The site at 611 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a half-mile north of Franklin Street and the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, was approved in May 2025 for Hillside Trace, a 100% affordable six-story building with 190 apartments, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. That project was meant to serve middle-income workers and families, the paper reports. But Lawler Development Group LLC pulled out of the Hillside Trace deal earlier this year, according to a Chapel Hill spokeswoman cited in the same report, leaving the site's future wide open just as SMN ATX moved in with its own vision.
Under current zoning, the parcel requires at least 25% affordable housing, which is why SMN ATX needs a rezoning to proceed at all, per the News & Observer's reporting. The new proposal calls for up to 31 studio and one-bedroom units, roughly 10% of the project, to be affordable to households earning up to 60% of the area median income, or about $53,400 a year. The remainder would rent at market rate, with the paper noting the plan includes market-rate apartments of up to four bedrooms.
What's Planned for the Site
The proposed building would rise roughly 90 feet and include more than 400 underground parking spaces, according to the outlet's review of the application. Renderings described in the report show a central, landscaped courtyard with a swimming pool, plus retail space that could include a grab-and-go market and coffee shop. The 3-acre site currently holds several older single-family homes, which the News & Observer notes Lawler Development Group had rented out for more than 10 years.
Environmental impacts are part of the equation too. The project would need to meet a 30% local tree-canopy requirement, but as proposed, it would leave only about 8% of the site's existing trees, the paper reports. The plan does preserve a stream buffer and wooded lot on the northwestern corner, according to the same account. A traffic study is expected in the next few months, and the Chapel Hill Town Council has no scheduled review of the rezoning application yet, per the report.
Where the Affordable Housing Money Stands
Taft-Mills Group was awarded $4 million in September from the town's voter-approved housing bond money and was planning to seek federal low-income housing tax credits for Hillside Trace, the News & Observer reports. Those funds have not been released, and the money remains available for future affordable housing projects, according to the same reporting. Separately, the Daily Tar Heel reports that the Chapel Hill Town Council approved $4.19 million on Sept. 10 for two other local affordable housing projects, supporting nearly 200 units expected within three years.
Hillside Trace, as originally approved, was subject to a minimum 30-year affordability period for all residents, the Daily Tar Heel notes. The project's location less than a mile from downtown along Chapel Hill's proposed bus rapid transit line was part of its appeal, according to a report from Chapel Hill Affordable Housing. The 611 MLK site itself sits near a key bus corridor serving UNC, the planned Carolina North campus and the future North-South bus-rapid transit line, per the News & Observer.
A Similar Deal Down the Road
The 611 MLK proposal isn't happening in isolation. Down the street, the approved 701 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard project includes up to 200 apartments and a small corner retail space, with roughly 10% of those units affordable, mirroring the 611 MLK ratio, according to the News & Observer. The 701 MLK project will be served by Chapel Hill Transit and a future North-South Bus Rapid Transit station at Longview Street, reports The Local Reporter, which also notes the Town Council approved that project by a 5-1 vote, with council member Ryan casting the lone dissent. The 701 MLK developer agreed to dedicate at least 10% of units, potentially 18 to 20 apartments, to households earning 60% of the area median income and agreed to accept federal Section 8 housing vouchers, per the same outlet.
Chapel Hill's affordability squeeze isn't new. A 2017 housing assessment found the town's greatest housing challenge to be affordability for lower-income households, and that one-third of Chapel Hill renters had incomes at or below 30% of the area median income, according to Community Housing Partners. That organization's Trinity Court redevelopment will replace 40 existing units with 54 affordable apartments serving households earning between 30% and 80% of the area median income, funded in part through 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credits and Town of Chapel Hill money. The town's Jay Street project, meanwhile, calls for two three-story apartment buildings with 48 units and a community center, according to the Town of Chapel Hill's project page.
For now, whether the 611 MLK site ends up as SMN ATX's market-rate-heavy proposal or something closer to the original Hillside Trace vision remains an open question for the Town Council to decide once a review is scheduled.
