Augusta breaks ground on low-income apartments with historical ties
AUGUSTA, Ga (WJBF)- Thursday, Augusta leaders will officially break ground on a low-income apartment complex in Augusta. The Lenox will help address the need for more affordable housing.
The Lenox is being co-developed by Woda Cooper Companies, Inc. and Parallel Housing, Inc.
The building will be 4 stories with commercial space on the ground level. The $17.5 million development will have 64 units, 25 one-bedroom and 39 two-bedroom and be ADA compliant with an elevator.
It’ll have a multipurpose room with kitchenette, a central laundry room, a computer room, fitness center, and rooftop terrace.
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Renters must earn 30 to 80 percent of the area’s median income or up to $54,880 for a two-person household.
“Affordable housing and not what we build, what we finance. Affordable housing doesn’t have to look like what you may think in your mind. Affordable housing, in my opinion, is competitive. And the aesthetic look of should be the aesthetic look over $250,000 house. There’s no difference. We expect no different. What the Lenox is, is a nucleus,” said Hawthorne Welcher, Director at Augusta Housing and Community Development.
The Lenox name and location has historical meaning, named for the old Lenox Theater and built just a few blocks from where it once stood. Located on what is now James Brown Boulevard, it was built in 1921 and was a social hub for African Americans in Augusta during segregation.
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It is said that the Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown, won his first talent contest there. It was severely damaged by a fire and finally torn down in 1978.
Hawthorne said that naming the new apartment complex after the Lenox Theater is an important way to pay homage to the neighborhood’s history.
“It brings back pretty much the memories of all the memories my father and my grandmother and all of them who actually were people who were sitting, who paid to actually go. So there could be no other name. There could be no other heartbeat. There could be no other feel but the Lenox,” he explained.
The ground breaking ceremony will take place on Thursday, April 25 at 11 a.m. at 1016 Laney Walker Blvd.
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