As Public Housing Near Square Comes Down, What Will Replace It?

Fort Hill Homes, the last of ’s family public housing projects, will be torn down later this year, and what replaces it could have a major impact on the city’s downtown.

Fort Hill, built in 1942 on Cole Street, a few blocks off the Marietta Square, has about 125 people still living there. Those residents are being moved into Section 8 rental housing.

“We’re not in any rush. I don’t see the demolition being completed until this time next year,” said Pete Waldrep, director of development at the . “We’ll go all summer and probably into the fall relocating people.”

Once that process is completed, the site will become about 6½ acres of green space.

A couple of blocks away, and even closer to the square, is the 12-acre site of the former Clay Homes, a project the MHA tore down several years ago and sold to a developer.

The redevelopment plans for the Clay Homes property on Roswell Road went bust in the recession, and the housing market hasn’t improved since. 

What’s to become of these two chunks of prime real estate so close to the heart of the city?

Marietta-based Walton Communities bought the Clay Homes site in 2010 from the original developer, Winter Properties, which could only manage to get a few town homes started before the recession hit. No one ever moved in.

Walton partner David Knight said he hopes to go before the in May with some infrastructure changes to the original Winter plan. If those are approved, he’ll come back with specific building possibilities on the site.

"We hope to break ground next year,” Knight said. “We’ll have minor changes to the Winter plan and zoning stipulations.” Winter’s drawing board included 250 to 300 homes, town homes and condominiums as well as restaurants, retail shops and some office space.

Knight said he’s been working with Miami architect Andres Duany on ideas for the Clay Homes site. Duany and his wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, are co-founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism and did the original plans for the town of Seaside in Florida.

The Winter plan at Clay Homes, called Meeting Park, included a small park within the development. Duany suggested making it bigger, Knight said, which would mean some of the roads would need to change on the property.

Knight said the plans could also include public parking space, something many merchants on the square say is lacking.

Both Knight and Waldrep at MHA agree that more housing near the square is important.

“If more people can walk to the square, you don’t have a parking problem,” Waldrep said. “If we had more live-work-play scenarios, it alleviates that problem.”

Knight added, “What Marietta needs is young people. The city has an aging population. Young people today want to live where they can walk to everything—restaurants, retail, everything.”

Waldrep said nothing has been decided about redeveloping the Fort Hill site, but what happens at Clay Homes could have an impact. “Let’s see what they come up with,” he said. “Let’s see what we might tail into. What parts or elements that they might not have in their plan might some developer want to do here?”

Waldrep, who is friends with Knight, applauds him for his efforts on Roswell Road. “The dag-blame economy is so bad nobody is willing to jump out there and take a chance,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with in their plan.

“The city fathers are thinking, this is our last best chance to invigorate our downtown so we’re not going to compromise about what goes in there.”

Today’s market makes just about any combination of housing a tough sell. “I started banking in 1972 and then went into development,” Waldrep said. “There’s never been anything like what we’ve been through the past five years. It has brought everybody to their knees.”

With the demolition of Fort Hill Homes, the MHA will be out of the family housing business and will focus strictly on senior housing. In the past decade the housing authority has torn down about 600 family apartments and built about 250 homes for seniors, much of it near the square.

“We’ve got a waiting list of about 700 for senior housing,” Waldrep said. “That tells us we probably can build more. Henderson Arms (on Henderson Street off the South Marietta Parkway) will be a big test.

"We had 150 people living there and moved them all out for a $20 million renovation. If we get all those people back, I’m telling you we’re going to build another one (senior housing development) pretty quick.”

Because there already is quite a bit of senior housing around the square, the MHA probably wouldn’t use the Fort Hill site for more, Waldrep said.

So what could go there?

There are many options, Waldrep said, but “ideally you might see about 30 Craftsman-style homes built right there.”

Then again, Waldrep said, Marietta public officials have long wanted to get a federal courthouse in town. “They pushed and pushed and pushed for it,” Waldrep said. “And they pretty much got the idea sold until the economy went bad.

"That would be a nice use for that piece of property.”