A zoning change recently approved by Hattiesburg City Council members will allow the construction of Cross Creek Village Phase II, an 84-unit multi-family apartment development on Cross Creek Parkway adjacent to Turtle Creek Mall.
Council members voted 5-0 Tuesday to change the zoning classification on a piece of property opposite the Cross Creek Village apartments from B-5 (Regional Business) to R-3 (Multi-Family Residential), following the recommendation of the Hattiesburg Planning Commission.
“B-5 is our highest-impact commercial zone – it’s typical of big box stores that you would expect around our mall, like Kohl’s and Walmart,” said Andrew Ellard, director of Hattiesburg’s Urban Development Department. “So to have apartments in that area requires the rezoning.
“It just goes along with the expectation of what’s going to come with a major corridor like Highway 98. Of course, we’ve seen that growth along Highway 98, but there’s still a handful of tracts like this that are still undeveloped. So we have an opportunity for something there, whether it’s commercial, or in this case, residential.”
Although the project is still in its initial stages, the proposed Cross Creek Village Phase II apartments are expected to be very similar to the existing Cross Creek Village development.
“It’s the same owner, and what they described at the planning commission meeting was a similar design,” Ellard said.
According to minutes from a recent Hattiesburg Planning Commission meeting, Cross Creek Village has boasted a 98 percent occupancy for the past three and a half years, with resident renewal rates of 70 percent. The complex also was awarded “Best Apartment Community” in Best of the Pine Belt voting.
During the zoning change request at that meeting, proponent Michelle Archer Littlejohn said Cross Creek Village is one of the few apartment complexes that serves Longleaf Elementary School, and there is a demand for similar multi-housing units within the Oak Grove area of the Lamar County School District.
“Hattiesburg has a very diverse inventory of housing, and this is one of those elements,” Ellard said. “It will hopefully be a higher-end type of apartment unit, which is very different from what see in, say, the center of Hattiesburg.
“So we like to know that we have a diversity of types of housing throughout Hattiesburg, and this plays into that.”
