The Town of Chapel Hill in collaboration with 97.9 The Hill WCHL & Chapelboro.com present “Our Town: Stories of Chapel Hill.” Each month you’ll hear from the people at the heart of your local government who are learning, serving, and working together to build a community where people thrive. This month, David Putnam and Sarah Potter, tell the story of economic development and their work to support and create a vibrant business community – so that Chapel Hill can thrive now and in the future.
chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/05%20-%20May/12/TOCH%20OUR%20TOWN%20-%20ECON%20DEV%20CHAPELBORO%20FULL.mp3David Putnam: As Economic Development Director for the Town of Chapel Hill, I lead the department’s economic development efforts, working collaboratively with the community. We help create new jobs, recruit new businesses, help folks expand and bring new investment to the town to uphold the standard of quality of life we really like.
Sarah Potter: As our Business Vitality Manager, which is a new role at the Town of Chapel Hill, I help all our existing businesses, whether that’s through permitting processes or helping them expand their business. And I also help community members who maybe don’t realize they have a business and help formalize their idea or their passion into a business.
Putnam: When people hear economic development, they sometimes think it’s just big businesses and manufacturing. We think of economic development as people, places, and partnership.
Potter: A typical day might mean a call from a community member who has been running a catering business out of their home and they are really wanting to develop that into a business, wanting to know how to get that business known to people, and also how to do all the legal things, how to get a business license, how to do an LLC, how to create a website, and want to know what resources are available in our area to help them do those things.
On March 11, 2025, family, friends, members of the Chapel Hill food scene and media line up for the luncheon to help open Tonya’s Café at 400 South Elliott Road in Chapel Hill.
Putnam: A big piece of economic development are the people. People to do the work. People to work at these places. People that make our community so special and vibrant. It’s meaningless without the people. One way we’re investing in our people, and Chapel Hill, is by working with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School System and their career technical education program by connecting people and students to high quality job opportunities right out of high school so they can decide to go to college if they want. They can go to Durham Tech if they want, or they could potentially jump right into working with a business.
Economic development in Chapel Hill is special. When someone’s interested in the town of Chapel Hill, we typically show them the university. We definitely show off our transit. We show them our beautiful Parks and Recreation amenities, our quality of life. We try and demonstrate the school system and how powerful that is as an asset too.
And then we also share what makes Chapel Hill so special and we have them meet local community leaders and other businesses so that they can also hear their stories. Economic Development really is the ultimate team sport because it takes all of us working together to really achieve it. We don’t do anything alone in our department. We are working with transit. We’re working with affordable housing and community connections. We’re working with our county, we’re working with the state, we’re working with Durham Tech. We’re working with all these partners to make sure that we reach the finish line together.
Potter: I want small businesses in Chapel Hill to know that we are here for them and that they can come to me directly, call me, email me, I’ll come to you, sit down with you, learn more about you, your business and what you need, and help you navigate that process. Whether that’s how to do business with the town, how to apply for permits, and how to find resources, because all that can seem complicated.
My vision for Chapel Hill is that it’s a place where businesses know that they can thrive here, and that our team is here to support them through challenges but also celebrate their success and help them grow.
Putnam: A Chapel Hill of the future in my mind, is a place where there’s plenty of opportunities for everybody to share, and have economic mobility, wealth to start a business if they want to live comfortably in the town and continue to prosper.
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Our Town: The Story of Economic Development in Chapel Hill Chapelboro.com.
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