Fifth Quarter Chapel Hill Encourages Safe Fun After Games

Chapel Hill, NC (November 1, 2006) – Chapel Hill leaders will introduce Fifth Quarter Chapel Hill, a new campaign to encourage Carolina football fans, both residents and visitors, to stay in Chapel Hill after the game concludes and take advantage of new bus schedules that will pick-up Park & Ride Lot users from Franklin Street several hours after the game concludes.

The program will see a soft roll-out to two Park & Ride Lots after the November 18 NC State game. The full campaign will be introduced during the 2007 football season. People using the NC Highway 54 (Friday Center) and University Mall Park & Ride Lots can take their time and walk to Franklin Street, enjoy a meal or shopping and then take buses back to their cars. Pick-ups will be on West and East Franklin Street every 30 minutes beginning one hour after the game ends and running for the next 2-1/2 hours. A noon kickoff for the NC State game will allow them to stay late in town and enjoy the fun activities, great restaurants and shops that Chapel Hill has to offer.

As its name implies, Fifth Quarter goes into overtime, and local leaders want the tens of thousands of fans to consider an over-time celebration downtown, or around Chapel Hill, instead of making a beeline for their buses or cars and departing town. “Chapel Hill is a lively destination for sports fans—especially during football season—and we hope to encourage safe, extended activity downtown and around town after the game ends,” said Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil.

“We have 85 restaurants in downtown Chapel Hill, nightclubs, ice cream shops and a variety of retail shops that stay open late. Plus, there is an ambience about Chapel Hill that is special,—to be enjoyed by newcomers and established residents who should rediscover their own downtown,” said Liz Parham, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership. “We know that visitors love the downtown restaurants and ambience but we are seeing a trend that has them leaving town right away. We are trying to reverse that trend,” said Parham.
Downtown volunteers will distribute fliers to park and ride users encouraging them to stay in Chapel Hill after the game and also reminding them of the host of the options available after the game. The materials distributed by the volunteers will promote new extended bus service sure to make a fifth quarter celebration even easier.

According to the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau, visitors typically spend $240 a day per person when visiting overnight. Day-trippers, who come for just the game, tend to spend $66 per day per person, and the Visitors Bureau would like to see that money spent in Chapel Hill. Tourism dollars make an annual impact of $127 million in Orange County.

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Did You Know?

UNC was the first state-supported university in the U.S. and enrolls nearly 30,000 students from all North Carolina counties, all U.S. states and more than 100 foreign countries.