FOCUSONURBANCORE LIVING

“Interesting housing options that feel more like a home, unlike the cookie cutter apartment options in the suburban developments.”

The Urban Core has a substantial amount of space to fill. Based on a windshield survey conducted in spring 2014, there are 328 acres of land, or 21 percent of the Urban Core, which are vacant or host to a vacant building. Low-activity uses, which include partial vacancy, parking, and underutilized parcels, comprise nine percent of the Urban Core. Therefore, 30 percent of parcels in the study area are wholly or partly inactive.

This vacancy and underuse varies in its distribution throughout the Urban Core. The mixed-use downtown core, for example, has a lower proportion of vacancy but is surrounded by “gaps,” or areas with a high concentration of vacant land or buildings and surface parking lots. These voids disconnect the downtown core from other nearby, relatively prosperous neighborhoods, including parts of InTown and neighborhoods near Mercer University. Several residential neighborhoods, namely Beall’s Hill, East Macon, and Pleasant Hill, suffer from high concentrations of vacancy and blight, as do industrial areas along the rail line and Seventh Street. High levels of vacancy and blight destabilize these neighborhoods.

The distribution of building conditions also varies throughout the Urban Core. Of properties that host a building, 19 percent are in excellent “A” condition, 31 percent are in good/average “B” condition, 30 percent are in average/ fair “C” condition, 16 percent are in distressed “D” condition, and 4 percent are in deteriorated “F” condition. Larger concentrations of “A” condition buildings center on institutions and stable neighborhoods, as well as parts of downtown. A significant portion of the downtown core, however, is distressed (in “D” or “F” condition), namely 26 percent; in the northern part of downtown, this proportion climbs to 54 percent. Even denser concentrations of distressed and deteriorated properties, however, are apparent in the residential neighborhoods hit with high concentrations of vacancy: East Macon, Pleasant Hill, and Beall’s Hill. In these neighborhoods, the percentage of parcel area that is distressed is over 40 percent.

These same neighborhoods evidencing high levels of distress also have high poverty rates. 71 percent of families in East Macon are living in poverty. In parts of Beall’s Hill the proportion is 61 percent, and in Pleasant Hill, the poverty rate among families is 47 percent. As a point of comparison, the poverty rate in neighborhoods near Mercer University is only 4 percent. In In-Town, it is 19 percent.

The neighborhoods in the Urban Core therefore face two types of issues: 1) Downtown, parts of InTown, and near Mercer (including Huguenin Heights and Tattnall Heights), have comparatively lower vacancy, distress, and poverty rates but are disconnected by adjacent “gaps” in the Urban Core’s fabric. These neighborhoods should aim to connect the dots and attract more residents. 2) Other neighborhoods, such Beall’s Hill, Pleasant Hill, and East Macon, experience higher rates of vacancy, distress, and poverty, and therefore need to stabilize and establish a foundation for revitalization by helping existing residents.

Among the themes this section addresses are:

• Residential development in downtown: How can we encourage more households to locate downtown and nearby?

• Strategies for fighting blight and revitalizing surrounding neighborhoods in the Urban Core: How can we strengthen them and best meet their needs?

Goal: