Fri, Jan. 30, 2004

Course set for growth
Consultants focus on converting Riverview Apartments, developing area south of 13th Street Bridge
BY ERIN SIMPSON
Staff Writer

Phenix City took a step toward its future Thursday.

Residents, government officials, business owners and others gathered at Chattahoochee Valley Community College to hear the proposal from The Boulevard Group, hired by the new East Alabama Riverfront Development to show the city what its downtown area could be.

The focal point: Convert Riverview Apartments to townhouses, and the retail world will flow down Phenix City's riverfront with development.

"One thing we think is important to focus on -- not just planning but implementation," said Jim Brooks, Boulevard Group owner. The consulting firm gave the city's leaders a view of what the riverfront could look like, and steps to get there.

The area south of the 13th Street Bridge is a prime location. "This I think in many ways could be the signature piece of the development," Brooks said. "Retail and shops along the ground floor, two or three levels of residential or office development above that, taking advantage of views of the river. The tie-in there to the riverwalk would be extraordinary."

Riverview plans

The major redevelopment would be at Riverview, which in the proposal is razed and rebuilt as mixed-income housing. Using money from possible U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants or funds the Housing Authority already gets, a modern housing complex can be built with low-income residents and regular rent-payers, "as opposed to using Housing Authority funds to renovate 50-year-old, obsolete public housing," Brooks said.

The Boulevard Group revitalized housing complexes in Atlanta, including the new Centennial Park, which now has a new elementary school and YMCA. The group is also involved in revitalizing the site of Columbus' Peabody Apartments.

Doug Faust, vice president of Boulevard, said there are many reasons the traditional housing complex at Riverview needs to be replaced. With a 26 percent vacancy level (some because of renovations), Phenix City is not supporting the public housing concept. "Families have made choices to live in other locations," he said. "There are an awful lot of vacancies, and there aren't any people waiting to fill those."

And the $4.6 million the Housing Authority is using to renovate old buildings could be put to better use. It would actually cost less per unit to build the townhouse-style apartments Boulevard suggests, Faust said. Riverview residents would pay the exact same rent they do now for the new housing units -- 30 percent of their adjusted income.

And it might bring more people into the area. "You've got plenty of people in Phenix City who would love to live in a place without the stigma of the subsidy," Faust said. "That's the problem with public housing." In the mixed-income complex, no one would know who pays full rent and who is subsidized.

Just replacing Riverview would be about a $40 million project and would take three to five years, Boulevard said. But the retail would follow. Former Mayor Sammy Howard, chairman of the Riverfront committee, said he knows of plenty of businesses that want to come if the public housing were not next door.

Chuck Roberts, Housing Authority executive director, said he was pleased with the presentation, but noted that Riverview is already under renovation so the tenants will have improved housing. "A lot of people made statements that they all need to be torn down," Roberts said. "I don't think so."

But the Boulevard plan won't work with some old-style public housing mixed in, the group said. If people can choose to live in new mixed-income townhouses or in renovated public housing, what are they going to choose?

The Boulevard Group is giving the city the opportunity to get started; it will be taking city and Housing Authority leaders, along with tenants, to Atlanta to show what can be done with public housing.

"This is painful. I'm absolutely not kidding," Faust said. "This is hard, but it can be done."