Demolition of Macon’s Tindall Heights begins

Macon-Bibb County leaders, housing officials and Tindall Heights residents turned out Monday to mark the start of a neighborhood transformation.

About 100 people celebrated the demolition kickoff for the first phase of a project aimed at revitalizing the neighborhood near Little Richard Penniman Boulevard. In 2017, the site is expected to become home to the first new development — Tindall Senior Towers.

Built in 1940, Tindall Heights was Macon’s first public housing development for black families. While considered state of the art at the time, the housing became obsolete over the decades, officials noted Monday.

“The history we have is not bricks and mortar. ... It’s the heart and soul and dreams of people that have lived here,” said Eric Manson, chairman of the Macon-Bibb County Housing Authority Board.

The housing authority will spend about $2.2 million to tear down Tindall Heights. The next three phases of the $45 million redevelopment are contingent on receiving federal grants.

Those phases would include multifamily housing that would reduce the size of Tindall Heights from 412 apartment units to 270.

Officials spoke Monday about the years of effort it took to secure federal money to begin the project, which included losing out on several Department of Housing and Urban Development grants.

John Hiscox, former executive director of the housing authority, said there was disappointment after missing the grants, but the vision to revitalize Tindall Heights never wavered.

“This housing authority believed in its own plan and was determined to see it through,” he said.

For decades, Tindall Heights served its purpose of providing decent shelter, but eventually, like many public housing developments across the country, it became a place that was failing its mission. The housing was too dense and the concentration of poverty became too high, Hiscox said.

“Tindall Heights began to look like a development whose time had come and gone,” he said.

While the new housing will provide more space and better amenities, the master plan also calls for an 8.5-acre commercial development that would provide shopping and job opportunities for residents. Thus far, about 200 people have been relocated from Tindall Heights.

Macon-Bibb’s leadership behind the Tindall project has also been instrumental in a federal program that will provide Internet access and digital tablets to hundreds of low-income families in Macon, said Edward Jennings Jr., HUD’s Southeast regional administrator.

“It’s going to set a standard for public housing,” he said.

This story was originally published May 9, 2016 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Demolition of Macon’s Tindall Heights begins."