Second Act presents development potential
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on February 25, 2016 1:46 PM
A mixed-use housing and retail community is potentially in the works for downtown Goldsboro, citizens learned Wednesday evening during a public meeting held at City Hall.
A team of three women from Second Act Communities -- a Virginia Beach, Va. based non-profit company -- made a presentation to roughly 40 people that attended the session to detail what the organization does, what could be in the works for Goldsboro and what the potential project could look like moving forward.
The area the company is interested in developing is the vacant lot at the corner of South Center Street and East Spruce Street, across from the city's police and fire department complex.
The company began talking to the city about a potential retail and residential community being developed downtown in November of 2015, and the session held Wednesday evening was an effort to loop citizens in early on the process of the project.
While there are no firm details yet about the project, the women did say they had heard a variety of things about what the downtown community might want.
One of those is a mixed-use building that would have a grocery store on the first floor of the building, with residential space on the floors above it.
The vision for the block that could potentially be developed by the company is called a "centered living concept," where citizens can both live and work.
And while that is Second Act Communities' vision for the development, the company emphasized, time and time again during the meeting, that the project does not move forward unless the community wants it.
No studies have been done about how much the development would cost or what rent would be for the residential spaces. But Addie Wright Thomason, president and chief executive officer of the company, reassured citizens that the residential areas would not be subsidized housing and would be rented at market rate.
"There would be no subsidies, no housing tax credits, none," Ms. Thomason said. "It's not needed here. We can fill these units, we don't need to do that here (downtown)."
It is also imperative for the company to construct something that the community is entirely happy with, Ms. Thomason said, and the community will be included in every step of the process as the project moves towards completion.
She said that if the project does move forward and is eventually completed, Second Act Communities would want two people from Goldsboro to take up positions on its national board to provide input and continue to have a say about the relationship between the community and the company even after the project is completed.
Before the proposal turns becomes a firm reality, it must still clear several hurdles with the City Council.