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Monday, Jan. 12, 2009

Historic Hills & Heights aims to expand work of Beall’s Hill

Officials from the city of Macon, Mercer University and Macon Housing Authority are trying to revive and expand a redevelopment effort of intown neighborhoods that has lost some of its momentum over the past few years.

They call it Historic Hills & Heights Development Corp., and it will take on tasks that the Beall’s Hill Development Corp. performed for nearly half a dozen years before being slowed by management problems and discontent among board members.

The city agreed to join the new entity last week. Like the other partners, Macon will pay quarterly membership fees of $75,000 per year to fund Hills & Heights, which is going to absorb the Beall’s Hill corporation. Property that currently is owned by Beall’s Hill is scheduled to be transferred to the Macon-Bibb County Land Bank Authority by the end of this month, and Beall’s Hill is likely to dissolve in February, officials said.

The corporation started in 2003, when the university, city and housing authority formally partnered to transform the neighborhood near Mercer’s campus. Its purpose was to coordinate the work of private developers and facilitate infrastructure upgrades in the targeted area, and meaningful progress was made.

But by 2006, the housing authority had withdrawn from the alliance because it was concerned with the way money was being handled. A pair of financial audits was commissioned, and the next year, the corporation’s executive director resigned.

Now, in Hills & Heights, officials are forming a similar but new organization that aims to take on redevelopment responsibility for a wide swath of south-central portions of the city. It reunites the original Beall’s Hill partners and could eventually attract others such as NewTown Macon or The Medical Center of Central Georgia.

“My goal in all this is to get things started again,” said Cass Hatcher, who is overseeing day-to-day business of Beall’s Hill and Hills & Heights. Hatcher works for the housing authority, which, although it no longer is a member of the Beall’s Hill board, was hired by the corporation last spring to run its operations.

Hatcher also is in charge of the authority’s efforts to secure millions of dollars in federal funds through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI grant, an attempt that was unsuccessful last year but which he said will be key to jump starting Hills & Heights. Officials in the next few weeks will look at potential plans for reapplying for that money.

When the authority won the grant in 2001, it tore down the aging Oglethorpe Homes in the Beall’s Hill area and built Tattnall Place.

That action sparked new development there, Hatcher said, and the hope is a new grant could be acquired to demolish and replace the Tindall Heights public housing complex. “You need a catalyst to get people really excited about things,” he said.

Like Beall’s Hill, Hills & Heights will coordinate efforts to manage, develop and rehabilitate properties and perform infrastructure work in targeted neighborhoods. The land bank will actually hold title to the property, while taking its direction from the development corporation.

The Hills & Heights board will work to attract outside developers while maintaining a strict review process of their proposals before relinquishing land. An area where Beall’s Hill stumbled, Hatcher said, was in allowing out-of-state investors to buy homes that either stayed vacant or turned into rental property. Promoting home ownership will be a core goal of Hills & Heights, he and others said.

The name reflects new areas where the corporation will work, in addition to Beall’s Hill: Tindall Heights, College Hill Corridor, Cherokee Heights, Pleasant Hill, Fort Hill and Montpelier Heights.

Mercer University President Bill Underwood said that expanded mission is what makes it advantageous to roll the Beall’s Hill corporation into Hills & Heights. Doing so lures the housing authority back to the table and makes redevelopment efforts more attractive to new partners, he said. It also opens up additional funding possibilities from private foundations, Underwood added.

“What Hills & Heights enables us to do is broaden the issue somewhat,” he said. “I think we can bring additional resources to the effort.”

Mayor Robert Reichert expressed similar sentiments through his spokesman, Andrew Blascovich. There are big possibilities created by luring the housing authority back to the partnership, and it’s important to address a wider area of the city, said the mayor, who was out of town last week.

“It’s an exciting opportunity,” Reichert said.

To contact writer Matt Barnwell, call 744-4251.