We often hear of objects looking for a good home. In Asheville, good homes are looking for people. For example, we read, “Haywood Habitat for Humanity is seeking qualified prospective homeowners.” WRES 100.7FM, “The Urban Sounds of Asheville,” is advertising on behalf of both Habitat and Mountain Housing Opportunities for people to step up and make the leap into a mortgage.
Meanwhile, the local daily finally answered a question I had asked a month or two ago. Nobody bothered to answer. Eagle Market Street Development Corporation had been trying, in one iteration or another, unsuccessfully for about two decades, to revitalize prime real estate with affordable housing downtown. Finally, MHO, which is expert at grant writing and seeing projects through to completion, forged a partnership. Personally, although I despise subsidies of any kind almost as much as I dislike manipulating people into overextending their commitments, I was most interested to see if the rock or the hard place would win out.
Whenever I went downtown in November or December, I would search for progress. Nothing seemed to be happening, even though the project’s leaders had promised completion by the end of last year. Reportedly, somebody asked the paper:
What’s going on over at the Eagle Market Street development on The Block downtown? Unless they are the quietest construction team to ever hammer a nail, construction has come to a total standstill for weeks, if not months. Are they out of money? Out of permits?
The answer was that the mixed-use development that is to feature 62 apartments, 6000 sq. ft. of community space, and 7000 sq. ft. of commercial space, ran into a problem with the concrete slab on the second floor.
