Housing, housing, housing.
There’s simply not enough of it in Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County as a whole, and it’s something many local leaders want to see a lot more of. When it comes to economic development projects, Guilford County is the dog that caught the car and now area leaders have to worry about keeping the infrastructure up to date in order to handle the new influx of people coming in to fill thousands of those new jobs.
That includes working on the road system – traffic has suddenly become a nightmare in Greensboro at many times of the day – and it also means upgrading and extending municipal water systems. It also includes handling the increased demand on county and city services, and, especially, it means having places where people can live – hopefully affordably.
That’s a difficult nut to crack because it takes time to build new housing, new workers are pouring into the county, and many of the houses on the market are being bought up by national companies that rent them out.
About three years ago, potential home buyers in Greensboro knew that, if they liked a house and wanted to buy it, they probably needed to make the deal that night or the house would be gone in the morning.
It’s in this environment that the City of Greensboro is strongly promoting the construction of housing in general and affordable housing in particular, and, this week, the City of Greensboro’s Housing and Neighborhood Development Department announced it was seeking qualified developers for the acquisition and development of affordable housing units located at 1004-1028 John Dimrey Dr. in Greensboro.
The department issued an online Request for Proposals on Monday, Dec. 2.
According to city officials overseeing the effort, “This project should address the community’s housing needs and enhance the surrounding area.
Those interested can visit www.greensboro-nc.gov/HNDRFPs for complete details.
A virtual pre-submittal conference is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 17 and an on-site conference will take place on Wednesday, Dec.18.
Both conferences are optional.
The written question-and-answer period extends to 4 p.m. on December 22.
Built around 1959, the John Dimrey Drive apartments once served as a “multifamily income-producing property.”
It contains four buildings with 24 garden-style apartments with two bedrooms and one bath. The property also includes paved parking surfaces.
Currently, the place, which is owned by the City of Greensboro and is 2.39 acres, is boarded up and unoccupied. It’s zoned for residential use and is located in an
Opportunity Zone, which provides some benefits to those who undertake the job of redevelopment of the site for reuse.
According to the Guilford County Tax Department, the current total assessed tax value is $1,108,600 with the buildings valued at $692,200, and the land priced at $416,400.
Request for proposal responses will be assessed “based on applicants’ experience in multi-family rental housing.”
Responses must be submitted electronically in PDF format to Grant Duffield at Grant.Duffield@greensboro-nc.gov by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
For questions or inquiries, you can email Duffield at Grant.Duffield@greensboro-nc.gov.
