Heavy downpours kept Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp from touring the construction site of the HUB for Community Innovation Thursday. Instead, he met with leaders on the project at a roundtable at the Enterprise Mill to hear about the community partnerships that are bringing the project to life.
“Thank you for the collaboration and for what you’re doing here,” he said. “I will say that I think there’s a lot of things I see and hear about every day that you all are addressing at the local level.”
Hunger, literacy, access to physical and mental health care are a few of the issues the HUB will address.
Ground was broken on the HUB site in April, but the work on the project went back months before that, according to Ian Mercier, president and CEO of the Medical College of Georgia Foundation, one of the project leads.
“This is a community effort in zip codes 30901 and 30904 that are two of the most severely distressed in the state of Georgia,” he said. “The effort is really about those people.”
The HUB has two buildings directly across from each other on Chafee Avenue in the heart of Harrisburg – HUB East will house the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Augusta while HUB West will provide space for Augusta Locally Grown, the Augusta University Literacy Center, RISE Augusta and Harrisburg Family Health Care.
The $20 million project received a $10 million jump start from the Augusta National along with AT&T, Bank of America and IBM in November 2020 and was assisted through the New Market Tax Credit, Mercier said.
Representatives from several of the agencies provided a brief synopsis of what they do and their hopes for the new building.
Laurie Cook, the executive director of RISE Augusta, said a focus of her organization is literacy through remedial instruction and tutoring. It also provides “wrap around services” when possible. These include food, utility and clothing assistance.
Cook said literacy is a problem in the Richmond County schools her organization works with. Her organization works with a small number of schools.
“Less than five percent read on grade level,” she said.
Space in the HUB will allow Cook’s program to reach more children.
“We’re super excited about this,” she said.
Also at the roundtable was Steven Kendrick, Augusta-Richmond County tax commissioner, who spoke the Choice Neighborhood Grant the city received last month.
Augusta received “one of four grants this year,” he said.
Funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the $450,000 planning grant will allow the city to put together a comprehensive plan to apply for possible $30 million to $40 million in federal funds to replace severely distressed public housing.
In Augusta’s case, Kendrick said after the roundtable, the funding would go to replace Allen Homes, which was built on the site of a former chemical plant.
Mercier said the HUB is one phase of a project, which helps not only the neighborhoods of Laney Walker and Harrisburg, but the health sciences campus at Augusta University.
Other future portions of the Augusta University piece include potential student housing and an area with a grocery store and other retail establishments. Also, an endowment will be established to ensure the organizations at the HUB will be able to focus on programming rather than paying the light bill.
After the meeting, Super District 9 Commissioner Francine Scott remarked on the collaboration of the many entities that are working to bring the project to fruition and the speed at which the building is being constructed.
“This collaboration brings needed resources and not necessarily money,” she said. “I see it as a win-win for Harrisburg and Laney Walker.”
Mercier said work on the structures is on a pace to be “hard hat ready” by the first week of April 2022.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the features editor of The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
