The Chapel Hill weekly. [volume] (Chapel Hill, N.C.) 1923-1972, 1923-03-22
PEAK LAND PRICE
FOR CHAPEL HILL
Taakersley Plot Near Cafeteria Sea
to Realty Company for $4,000
or $333.33 a Front Foot


, W. L. Tankersley, has sold the
remaining 70 feet Of his frontage
on Franklin Street for $4,000.
This rate of $333.33 front foot is
the highest price ever paid for real
estate in Chapel Hill.
The purchaser is the Chapel Hill
Insurance and Realty Company.
1t has been known for some time
that the company has had. a yearn-
ing gaze fixed upon this plot, but
the yearning did not reach the
three hundred and hirty-three-dol-
lars-a-foot point until a few days
ago. The genial octupi, Robertson
and Whitfield, finally decided, how
ever, that their list of assets would
not be really satisfying unless they
captured this stretch along the
main street.
What they are going to do with
it is not announced yet. But the
obvious probability is the erection
of another brick business building,
with stores on the ground floor and
either Offices or students living
rooms above.
This sale emphasizes once again
the~canniness of people who hold
and keep or holding land in a
growing town. Thirty years ago
three or four thousand dollars
would have been considered a~good
price for the whole Tankersley
property between the postt=ofHfice
and the cafeteria. Now, counting
in the value of the plot where Mr..
Tankersley himself is building
stores, the property has brought
about $4,000. .~..
Sittin' tight is a great game
Bill" friend of his, passing by,
said to, him the other day. I
"Y&s, and if l sat tight a little
longer I'd get still more" he de-
piled. r.
Which is no doubt true. But he
went on to say that the noise and
dust of traffic had made the place
undesirable as home, and that his
mother had to leave it and live else
where. -
AS always, when a piece of land
goes at high price, condolences
are extended TO people who sold
adjoining property a few years ago
at much lower figure. Old
friends of William de b. Mac
Nider, meeting him on the street,
greet him with spch cheering re.
marks as: "It's shame, Bill, that
you folks didn't hold on for a
while longer to the land you sold
to the government for a pest-office.
You'd get whoppin' price for it
now" And the doctor walks sadly
off, reflecting upon the beautiful
microscopes and tissue carving
weapons and other laboratory de-
lights he might now be buying if
he had held on.
The high price of real estate
along this most crowded stretch Of
theJmaln street leads one to wonder
if builders will change from the
twoastory to the three-story plan
for their business structures. AS
land increases in value it has to be
used more and more intensively;
that is, the owner has to get more
revenue, out of a given ground
space, in order to make the~owner4
ship of it profitable. Yet, in Chapel
Hill there is hesitation about put
ting on third stories, for the reason
that the efflertion of walking up
two flights Of stairs from the street
level frightens off tenants. There
are some buildings which are only
two stories high now but which
have been made strong enough to
another floor if the de-
mand for it is urgent enough.
Automobile radiators had to be drained
MondaU NIGHT whan q auddan Rpaa,a