“The boulevard will never be the same,” with the construction start of The Lenox, an affordable housing complex on Laney-Walker Boulevard.
Officials with the development team, city staff and dozens of onlookers packed a Thursday groundbreaking for the complex, located at 1016 Laney Walker Blvd.
The $17.5 million project will feature 64 one- and two-bedroom units, located at the 1.5-acre former site of the Immaculate Conception school. The four-story high-rise will have an elevator and units for people with disabilities.
The inspiration for the name, pronounced “Le-NOX,” is the legendary Lenox Theater a few blocks away, said Emcee Corey Rogers, from the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History.
The once-thriving 1920s theater, destroyed in the 1970s, was the heart of Augusta’s Black Wall Street, was where James Brown won his first talent show, and its “sprit endures,” Rogers said.
Commissioner Francine Scott, who represents the area, said the complex marks the addition of more rooftops needed for an incoming grocery store.
“We needed a food store. We needed affordable housing. Well guess what? We’re getting it,” she said.
Denis “Denny” Blackburne, with the Savannah office of Woda-Cooper Companies, said the apartments will be available to renters earning up to 80% of area median income. That’s about $55,880 for a household of two, he said.
Blackburne, whose company worked on Kendrick Place, an affordable housing proposal at the King Mill tailrace, said rents at the Lenox would range from $282 to $1,025.
The Lenox is to be LEED-rated for its inclusion of energy-efficient and green features, he said.
Tax Commissioner Tederell Chris Johnson represented the Augusta, Georgia Land Bank Authority Thursday.
The land bank acquired the former church site from the diocese in 2016. Property records say the city paid $190,000 for it.
Augusta Housing and Community Development Director Hawthorne Welcher, who oversees the city’s redevelopment efforts in the historic area and elsewhere, said Laney-Walker will be forever changed by the new development.
Welcher said Augusta is committed to locating a deli, medical offices and a grocery store there.
Last year, the city celebrated its acquisition of the historic C.T. Walker Home, also in the 1000 block, from Historic Augusta.
Despite the progress, many blighted structures surrounded the former church school site Thursday.
Immediately east, an overgrown former bank branch, the onetime headquarters of Ronlyn Food Service, awaited action.
The land bank already has ties to the property, located at 1102 Laney Walker Blvd. In 2018, the land bank applied to rezone it on behalf of owner CGG Holdings of Aiken.
CGG, whose registered agent is former Aiken Housing Authority CEO Reginal Barner, paid $190,000 at a bank sale for the .8-acre site in 2016, according to property records.
The Lenox outscored all other Augusta applications for 4% low-income housing tax credits in 2022 through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
Other funding sources include private activity bonds and housing vouchers issued by Augusta Housing Authority, and nonprofit management by Woda partner Parallel Housing, Inc.
