Senior Housing: Plans on track
Alena Parker for Rockdale Citizen
CONYERS — Officials estimated the first shovel will go in the ground next year for a new residential unit project in Olde Town Conyers.
R.J. Fields of the Independent Educational Community Development Group presented an update on the Taylor Street senior housing project during a Downtown Development Authority meeting Tuesday.
Fields’ group is in a partnership with the city and the Conyers Housing Authority to help improve and increase housing in Conyers.
Fields said a request was submitted last week for a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant to fund the project.
Plans are to put about 150 housing units for senior citizens on about 7 acres on Taylor Street.
An architect and engineer for the project were recently selected.
“It’s going to be very nice architecturally,” Fields told the group.
The project has been in the works since late last year after a year’s worth of study, but Fields said things will be “happening fast now.”
He told the board he is working on the loan commitments to fund the project, which Fields estimates will be completed in the next six months or less.
Fields said loans, backed by U.S. Housing and Urban Development, pay for this Housing Authority activity. The land must go through a conversion process to comply with HUD standards, Fields said.
“Ultimately, this Housing Authority property and this disposition comes back around to being the oversight of this board, as it relates to downtown and the Olde Town revitalization area,” Fields said.
Fields said he would continue to update the board as more progress is made and said it would likely be next year when project construction starts.
“It’s going to be an extension of a dream that actually got started here in the DDA,” Fields said.
