Morrisville Town Center Plan - 2007

Chapter 1: Existing Conditions

retail uses, substantial access constraints along these roads severely limit highway- oriented retail development. • Carpenter Village has a town center (“Village Marketplace”), but even this new, highly visible and accessible urban development is so far only populated by a few professional offices, two personal services, and one restaurant. To capture specialty retail potential in the face of highly-accessible competition like Carpenter Village, it is critical to leverage the unique, lower-density rural character of the Morrisville Town Center. Office: • The study area is part of a large and significant office sub-market. The area is accessible and desirable, particularly for professional services and small business owners who do not prefer an office park location. • Office occupancy in surrounding areas is relatively high (90% range), but the tenant mix in those areas is dominated by technology, corporate, and regional sales & distribution. There are few professional service clusters. • There may be significant opportunities for lifestyle-driven professional office uses, including live-work buildings for archi- tects, graphic designers, lawyers, medical professionals, residential contracting & service businesses (e.g., interior design- ers), etc. Based on follow-up assessment, there is considerable reason to believe that opportunities for professional uses that serve the growing local community (as opposed to RTP-oriented technical service firms) are increasing and that the Town Center will be a good location for such uses. Industrial: • The study area provides a good location for industrial and distribution uses (due to its accessibility to the regional market), although most such uses may not be

consistent with the community’s vision for a town center.

Civic and Community Services: • There is already an important (but not entirely visible) civic base of uses, including fire, police, town hall, chamber, church, and parks. Recreation and day care uses are located nearby. This cluster provides the area with the seed of a town center identity. • The two gaps in this mix include education facilities and cultural or audience support facilities, the latter of which can include dinner theaters, art galleries, amphithe- aters, civic & meeting centers, sports arenas, etc. A children’s theater is one use that has been proposed in the area and can be considered among others as a potential tenant or anchor use for a civic facility. However, more work needs to be done to assess the feasibility and long- term viability of such uses. In sum, significant market opportunities exist for a variety of uses within the Town Center area, but in order to realize this potential, careful attention must be given to community preferences and how the desired uses are supported within the larger Town Center design.

A significant opportunity identified in the market report is for professional offices for graphic designers, archi- tects, medical professionals, and similar businesses. (Photo: Ben Hitchings, Town of Morrisville)

15 │ Town Center Plan

January 2007