Groundbreaking on a new apartment complex near downtown Waycross is expected early this month, officials said at a recent town hall meeting.
Christened “Windsor at Waycross,” the development consists of 72, one-bedroom units by property owner/developer Jeremiah Horne of Ethan Jackson Investments and TrueNorthWay LLC., Cairo, Ga.
The project site is on Brunel Street near Howe Street and Haines Avenue. The Waycross City Commission approved rezoning the property from commercial to residential last month.
This is the second time Horne has proposed a development for the site, he said at the February town hall hosted by District 3 Commissioner Katrena Felder.
“We tried to get this property rezoned four or five years ago, but it did not get passed,” Horne said at the session. “It was a typical apartment complex looking property. It was something we build successfully in other towns and we thought it would do great here. It didn’t work out at that time.
“What’s neat about this area is there’s a great historic character in that neighborhood. This is the first city we’re going to build this new model in. This architecture will bring tremendous aesthetic value to the cities we build it in.”
The property is the first in the companies repertoire to feature architecture designed to meld into the surrounding historic neighborhood comprised of mostly of two-story Victorian homes.
“I appreciate Mr. Horne and his team for adhering to the city’s building, codes and planning regulations in order to properly move forward with this highly anticipated housing project,” Felder said. “Mr. Horne also saw the need to get this project right by first researching the history of the community.”
The development will offer affordable rent, off street parking, washer/dryer hookups, and monitored exterior security cameras on all of the buildings.
“This is the first major addition to the City of Waycross inventory of this nature in over 25 years,” said Aurora Taylor, pre-development director of Ethan Jackson Investments.
“We did a housing needs assessment for the City of Waycross. There’s a shortage of over a 1,000 units in the city.”
According to Taylor, the prime workforce is between 18 and 34 years old.
“You have a 1,000 of those people working and still living with mom and dad,” Taylor said. “That’s 1,000 people who aren’t being served by the current housing market. Our specific project is aimed at the young, single adult professional.”
The rent for each unit is projected to be between $970 and a $1,000 per month including water and WiFi.
“There’s only 5,200 livable units in the city for a population over 11,000,” added Taylor.
The units will be housed in six individual buildings with parking behind. There will be no on street parking. Five of the buildings will face Brunel with access from Brunel Street, and the sixth will face Howe.
Taylor said they will be built on elevated foundations close to the front of the property. In order to help mitigate drainage issues, the parking will be gravel with only the ADA parking spaces paved.
Vegetation will be planted to help absorb water. Each building will be a three-story walk up with ADA accessible units on the ground floor.
Ethan Jackson is funding the multi-million dollar project without the use of government subsidies or taxpayer dollars.
“We haven’t needed any subsidies or tax breaks to make this happen,” assured Taylor.
“While the homes we build are ‘affordable,’ that word has come to have a different meaning,” stated Horne. “These are not subsidized homes. They are not based on income. It is a pure market rate home. The rents are designed to be affordable for the working people.”
