City wants to help with ‘transformative’ Peters Creek project
City Council members expressed interest in contributing $600,000 to transform the Budget Inn property on Peters Creek Parkway into workforce housing.
The Peters Creek Community Initiative (PCCI) has been looking to acquire and transform the property for years and has an option to buy it that expires on Sept. 30. The motel has been a source of urban blight and crime for years that has made it difficult to attract development to the area.
The majority of the City Council was present at Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, and they gave staff the go ahead to work on something for council members to vote on next month.
“I don’t use this word lightly, but this is genuinely a potentially transformative project for the whole neighborhood,” said City Council Member Dan Besse, whose South Ward contains the Budget Inn. “… It would, in fact, change the nature of Peters Creek Parkway. The property it would be replacing has been a community eyesore for years.”
PCCI is a subsidiary of the Shalom Project working with the North Carolina Housing Foundation and the National Development Council. The plan is to demolish the Budget Inn and then redevelop it as a mixed-use four-story complex with 60 residential units. The development will also have some retail space and house the Shalom Project’s new headquarters.
The adjacent property, which was a former automotive dealership used by the Salvation Army, is being redeveloped into a new Mazda dealership by the Bob King Automotive Group. PCCI Chairman Kelly Mitter said both projects will account for a $25 million investment in the area.
The city has already supported the project by funding a feasibility study for it in 2016. Mitter said PCCI has had a lot of support over the last years.
“This is one of those projects where everyone we’ve spoken with, whether it’s on the city level or staff or on the neighborhood level, everyone is really supportive,” said Mitter
PCCI has asked both the city and county to help cover the $1.2 million cost of buying the land.
The city and county are currently in negotiations on what that would be like. City management said that the discussions currently involve the city purchasing the property and the county having a lien on it. Both would be investing $600,000 a piece. The city’s funds would be comprised of $200,000 from the voter-approved 2014 bonds, $100,000 from Revitalizing Urban Commercial Areas (RUCA) and $300,000 from the bond that will be on the ballot in November.
