A few years ago, officials from the Housing Authority of the City of Hattiesburg were able to secure funds to renovate the “S” and “T” buildings at Briarfield Homes, part of the 148 units at the apartments on Gordon Street in downtown Hattiesburg.
The organization – which manages those apartments, along with Robertson Place on Katie Avenue – is now looking to rebuild the entire complex in that manner, with help from the Federal Home Loan Bank Affordable Housing Program and the Mississippi Home Corporation Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program.
“We just want to improve the quality of our residents, wherever they’re at,” said Judy Mellard, executive director of the housing authority. “So our dream is to do all of Briarfield like the ‘S’ and ‘T’ buildings, with additional parking spaces, and there’ll be infrastructure going on – we’ll have to build the flood zone area up.
“We want a community center that’s more active with the resource center with the residents. We’ve been kind of quiet about it, because we haven’t gotten anything approved yet.”
To begin the process, Mellard met with Andrew Ellard, the director of the city’s Urban Development Department. Following that meeting, Hattiesburg City Council members voted 5-0 to adopt a Community Revitalization Plan for the apartments, which lays out the renovation of the site.
“We’ve got to do something, because you can either sell it and let something else happen to it, or you can merge with another public housing authority, or you can try to see if you can get land elsewhere,” Mellard said. “But we want to revitalize where the residents are now and improve downtown Hattiesburg.
“And I think the city would love that if we did that, and it would be a quicker, easier process if we could just rebuild where we are, on the land that we own.”
As of now, nothing is set in stone, as the plans are contingent on how much – if any – funds are allocated toward the project.
“It’s our plan, our dream and our hope,” Mellard said. “I think this is the right thing to do, and I’m all about doing what is right and good.
“We’ve already been through the state department of history and archive on the ‘S’ and ‘T’ – they came down and did a lot of pictures. So I don’t think we’ll have a big problem; I’m hoping not. I think we have a pretty good relationship with most everybody, and we want to do it for the better of the city, and especially the residents and the community.”
