Walker’s Funeral Home has vacated its home in the heart of downtown Chapel Hill after more than 70 years.

The funeral service, with locations also in Hillsborough and Mebane, opened a modern facility in December at 11680 U.S. 15-501 North, near North Chatham Village (formerly Cole Park Plaza) in Chatham County.

The building on West Franklin Street could be sold by the end of January, owner Elizabeth Walker said. The longtime Walker’s Funeral Home building on the 0.8 acre lot will probably be demolished, funeral associate Jim Gies said.

Walker declined to share details about the pending sale, but said the property includes a parking lot on West Rosemary Street.

The decision to move was based on the age and condition of the building, which was constructed in 1952, and the difficulties with parking downtown, especially for funerals during UNC’s home football games, Walker and Gies said.

“The (Franklin Street) building was very old and needed a lot of attention. The taxes were very high. It got to the point of why are we even doing business with taxes so high, so we started thinking about building,” Walker said.

The Chatham County facility seats about 125 people, Gies said. It also has a larger arrangements room, and visitation rooms that can host larger gatherings, he said. A separate, smokeless crematorium could be added in the near future.

Walker’s Funeral Home employs roughly 10 people between the Mebane, Hillsborough and Chapel Hill facilities, Walker said.

The Hillsborough location is even older than the Chapel Hill site, first opening in 1922 across from the Old Orange County Courthouse. It also operated an ambulance service before that became a county government function.

It soon moved to its current location at 204 N. Churton St., where Walker’s husband, Allen H. Walker Jr., was born and raised in the upstairs living quarters. That building is also due for a remodel, Gies said.

Allen Walker worked in the family business from a young age when he washed the cars, Walker said. He ran the ambulance service, embalmed bodies and assisted families as he grew older, she said. In 2005, he died, leaving Walker to run the business, with occasional help from their children, she said.

“I didn’t mean to” get into the funeral business, Walker said. “I married Allen Walker. He slowly wove me into it.”

Other business news

▪ BaseCamp Chapel Hill announced Dec. 28 that it would stop serving its signature drinks and global street food. The bar and grill opened in May 2022 at 105 E. Franklin St.

Owner Ramesh Dahal, who operates Momo’s Master, a Nepalese restaurant around the corner at 110 N. Columbia St., said BaseCamp was a victim of too much good food in one location.

Momo’s Master has almost doubled the production of its popular handmade dumplings to 2,000 a day in the last year, he said, and now has nine flavors with more planned.

“I think this town and community needs unique and different food,” Dahal said, adding that he “chose (to focus on) Momo’s Master because of the way people love and follow us continuously.”

▪ Work is underway in Carrboro on a new, brick-and-mortar location for The Flying Pierogi, which could open in February.

Jaysen Wilson, who operates the German and Polish deli out of a food truck with his wife Melodie, was busy in early January painting the walls and upgrading Suite 140 at 101 Two Hills Road in the South Green shopping center. The Flying Pierogi will replace the former Coronato Pizza, which closed in October after expressing “significant health and safety concerns” with a neighboring cigar shop.

Both Coronato Pizza and Oasis Cigar Lounge moved out of the shopping center and have not announced plans for reopening.

Do you have business news in the Orange County area? Send it to Tammy Grubb at tgrubb@newsobserver.com