FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – The City of Florence is hoping to draw more people back to neighborhoods in the north, northwest and east parts of town by building new, upgraded houses.
Earlier this year, the city officially started the Neighborhood Revitalization Program and began knocking down abandoned homes and replacing them with modern houses. Director of General Services Scotty Davis says the city is now “intentionally overbuilding the market.” The goal is to add an incentive for people to move back to these neighborhoods after leaving for other parts of town that have more housing options. After conducting an analysis, city officials realized residents in this area can afford to live in more expensive and higher-end houses with mortgages of about $180,000.
“A number of people would move out and more to other parts of the city. Or they would stay in their $70,000 to $100,000 home and just not be able to move up or upgrade their housing unit,” said Davis.
The first three houses of the program have already been built and one family has moved in. The houses are located on Vista Street, right across from North Vista Elementary School. Each one cost about $200,000 to build, is about 1,500 square feet, has modern features, and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Davis says the redevelopment plan is about more than building houses and the city is also working on revamping the infrastructure.
“As you see, we’ve done some infrastructure work on Vista. And we’re currently doing it on Sumter. That’s about halfway complete and we’ll start, in the next several months, on Pine,” said Davis.
The city’s goal is to knock down as many abandoned homes as possible. They’re working to determine how much funding they can get and how many vacant homes they can acquire.
