In the next year, market-rate homes will sit in what are now three vacant lots and a boarded-up brick duplex on Heidt Street in Columbia’s historic Waverly community.
The revitalization effort that will also stretch to the historically black Allen-Benedict Court and Arsenal Hill communities is fueled by a public-private partnership to showcase minority home builders and encourage minority homeownership.
The entire revitalization project is expected to generate more than $3 million worth of residential real estate over the next year.
The first phase of the “City Dreams” project, the brainchild of Maxim Communication Group CEO Jim Hardy, kicked off last month.
And 40-year Waverly resident Doris Hildebrand, on hand for the groundbreaking, couldn’t be happier with the revitalization plans for the historically black neighborhood.
“We’re pleased and happy our dreams are finally coming true,” said Hildebrand, who also serves as president of the Waverly Neighborhood Association.
“We’ve waited a long time, and our patience was wearing thin. We know the homes — whether remodeled or new — will be beautiful and appealing.”
The city has committed some $800,000 to the construction of three homes and the transformation of a duplex — each with more than 2,000 square feet and two or more stories — in the 1300 block of Heidt Street, said Deborah Livingston, executive director of the Columbia Housing Development Corp.
Another phase of City Dreams includes plans for four homes in the Allen-Benedict Court community, three of which will be new and one a rehabilitation project, Hardy said. A multifamily development of Charleston-like row houses is planned for Arsenal Hill.
The two phases will be completed by next spring. City Councilman E.W. Cromartie Jr., who grew up in a Gervais Street home in Waverly, said the houses on Heidt will range in value from $199,000 to $215,000.
Livingston said would-be buyers should not be daunted by the prices because innovative financing packages will be available.
First Citizens Bank has committed to provide first mortgages for $2,000 down and an interest rate one-half a percentage point below the market rate for the Heidt Street properties, Livingston said. The Columbia Housing Development Corp. will provide a second mortgage of $25,000 at 2 percent for each house, Livingston said.
Hardy said such financing will be crucial to wooing buyers for the homes.
“We want to rebuild without fear of gentrification because that’s normally what happens,” said Hardy, whose mother Mary grew up on Oak Street in the Waverly community.
Gentrification, or the displacement of lower-income residents by higher-income residents in a neighborhood, generally occurs when an older neighborhood is revitalized.
Cromartie said he looks forward to recapturing the days when Waverly was a premier African-American community in the 1940s and 1950s.
“We want to attract people who would normally go to WildeWood and give those who were once part of this community the chance to get high-caliber housing in this community,” said Cromartie, also vice chairman of the Columbia Housing Development Corp. board.
Two black home builders — Michael Squirewell, president of Squirewell Builders Inc., and Cornell Daney, owner of C & D Custom Designs — have committed to building one house each on Heidt Street.
Daney will build at 1329 Heidt St., and Squirewell will build at 1317 Heidt St. Contracts have not yet been awarded for the house to be built at 1319 Heidt St. or the renovations of the duplex at 1325 Heidt St., Cromartie said.
