DGDC looking for help to add housing
By Matt Caulder
Published in News on August 29, 2013 1:46 PM
Friday is the deadline for responses to a proposal for a private developer to partner with the city of Goldsboro for residential development at the south end of Center Street.
The proposal was sent out by the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. in July to the list of developers available to the organization, DGDC Director Julie Metz said.
No responses have been received to date on the proposal.
"We have a limited database of contractors, so if we get no responses, we will work on expanding the database," Ms. Metz said.
The project is the result of a 2007 directive to the DGDC from the City Council to pursue downtown residential development.
"There were 15 or so unowned properties, none of them were historically significant, so over the next two years, we negotiated for the properties," Ms. Metz said.
She said the master plan called for seven single family homes on each side of Center Street, but that plan was adjusted after the economic downturn to include an apartment complex as well as smaller single family homes.
Ms. Metz was working to identify a niche market for the development and whom it would serve.
"We found that people want to move downtown to have that urban feel and not have yards to maintain," Ms. Metz said.
The city acquired property on both sides of South Center Street in the 300 and 400 block for the development of the residential properties.
Four houses were torn down as part of the process and most of the land was too subdivided to build on, Ms. Metz said.
A residential building steering committee advises the city on the site plan for the project.
The committee decided in conjunction with the city that high density apartments and some smaller single home family homes would serve the community better than 14 larger houses.
The proposal describes the expectation for the atmosphere of the development.
Items on this list include an urban character, a sense of privacy and a dog park.
Without any prospective partners yet the project does not have a set schedule for when work could begin.
According to the proposal, no new residential construction projects have taken place downtown in decades and the 140 existing upper-story apartments in downtown often have waiting lists.