1st homes in Joe Wright Village getting closer
The Housing Authority is still working out plans for how many units they will build.
The first three housing units in the Joe Wright Village gated public housing community, off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, are expected to be ready for occupancy by Feb. 1, 2017.
Northwest Georgia Housing Authority Director of Technical Services Martin Duke said there is a chance the two singlefamily homes and one duplex could be complete before then but did not want to commit to an earlier completion date.
The housing authority is serving as its own general contractor for the project to save money and will do so in the future, Executive Director Sandra Hudson said.
“My goal is to have our own construction company so we can bid on other work in this community,” Hudson said.
Executive Director Sandra Hudson said a duplex unit and a two-bedroom home under construction are each expected to come in right around $150,000 each.
A three-bedroom home is expected to cost between $160,000 and $170,000.
Duke said that when the housing community is completed it will include 11 or 12 duplexes and 10 or 11 single-family homes. The uncertainty about the actual number of units is related to issues with the lot sizes, he added.
“We just don’t have the footprint worked out yet on each one of the lots.”
The homes in the gated village are being paid for by replacement housing funds stemming from the demolition of the Altoview Terrace apartments off Spring Creek Street in East Rome, the Charles Hight homes at Turner McCall Boulevard and Fifth Avenue and the Fairgrounds apartments on the property where Joe Wright Village is being constructed.
Hudson said the authority has more than $1.6 million in that pool of funds at this time.
Another $1 million is available for the Joe Wright Village from the sale of the Charles Hight homes property to Madison Retail, the developer of the Charles Hight Square shopping center on Turner McCall.