The Mobile Housing Board has picked three development teams to help remake public housing on the city’s south side, an early step in an ambitious plan to overhaul affordable housing across Mobile at an estimated cost of up to $439 million.
The effort, known as Transformation Plan 2020, sorts the board’s 13 housing developments into groups that will be revitalized, repositioned or retained. Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn said the board’s initial attention is on Southside communities Thomas James Place, R.V. Taylor Plaza and Boykin Tower, along with the Northside communities Roger Williams and Josephine Allen.
For the roughly 330 acres of Southside property, the board selected Hollyhand Development of Northport, Columbia Residential of Atlanta, and a partnership of Pennrose Properties and BLOC Global Development Group based in Philadelphia and Birmingham. Vaughn said that once fully built out, the Southside transformation could carry a value in excess of $750 million.
Central to the vision is the idea of mixed-income neighborhoods woven together with commercial and mixed-use amenities such as a gym and a grocery store. The board hopes to design the communities so that lower-income homes are indistinguishable from the rest, encouraging residents of different backgrounds to interact. “We think the interaction of people in a positive way is what makes a community thrive,” Vaughn said.
Not every property will be rebuilt from scratch. On the Southside, Oaklawn is slated to be repositioned along with Central Plaza Towers and Emerson Gardens, with off-site replacement housing offered while work is underway. On the Northside, Gulf Village would be retained, joining Orange Grove and the newer Renaissance community.
Board officials pointed to the age of the existing housing stock as a driving factor. Setting aside the recently built Renaissance communities, the affordable housing developments average about 54 years old, and four properties are more than 70 years old. Vaughn said momentum from local colleges, a revitalized downtown and major employers such as Airbus and Austal convinced the board that the time to act had arrived. “If we let it go, we will look back and say we missed the time,” he said.
Vaughn framed the plan as complementary to Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s “One Mobile” goal of making the city one of the safest and most business- and family-friendly places in the country. Overall, redeveloping or repositioning all 13 properties is projected to cost between roughly $344 million and $439.5 million, figures that do not include commercial, institutional or recreational components.
The Boulevard Group is coordinating the process. Officials said a master development plan would begin in mid-January and take an estimated four to six months to complete, with residents and local stakeholders invited to weigh in during the 2015 planning phase.