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During the LaGrange City Council work session on Tuesday morning, the city received an update on ongoing plans to renovate the former Unity Mill.

In January, the LaGrange City Council discussed a proposed redevelopment project by DASH (Dependable Affordable Sustainable Housing) to turn the former Unity Mill into affordable housing. 

The nonprofit would like to redevelop the long-closed former Unity Mill into housing, similar to the Dixie Mill renovations.

Plans include renovating the 125-year-old textile mill into 104 units of loft housing, with 80 percent earmarked as federally regulated affordable housing with an income cap and 20 percent market-rate units. 

DASH would like to use historic tax credit funding as well as low-income tax credit funding to help pay to renovate the former mill into something useful.

Marilyn Hall, who has been working with city staff and DASH on the redevelopment, gave an update on the project.

“The Unity Mill Community Revitalization Plan is a collaboration between DASH, the Community Development Department, and other community stakeholders like residents of the Union Mill area, LaGrange, local business owners and nonprofits,” Hall said.

Hall said that because of the demographics of the community, the area qualifies for tax incentives.

“It’s also what’s called a qualified census tract, which means that it meets some HUD housing and urban development standards for qualifying for things like low-income housing tax credits and other specific programs,” Hall said.

The target area includes two tracts. One has almost 31% of the people who live there live below the poverty line as defined by the census, which is 20% higher than the City of LaGrange. The other larger tract at 3.7 square miles has about 26% living in poverty, which is also higher than LaGrange and Troup County. 

“About 30% of the seniors in that tract live in poverty, whereas in LaGrange as a whole, 17.4% live in poverty and 14% in Troup County, so there’s a higher concentration of older folks living in poverty there,” Hall said.

Hall said there is a bunch of infrastructure in the community study area and employment resources, medical services and parks, which makes it a great location, particularly with being right next to downtown, so those that live there have a lot of opportunities. 

Sam Craig, Director of Development for DASH, said the project was recently awarded historic tax credits amounting to $6 million in equity.

“That’s a good start on a $30 million-plus project. We needed that, and we got it,” Craig said.

As part of the process moving forward, DASH requested a letter of support to be submitted as a part of their DCA tax credit application, which was approved at the evening council meeting on Tuesday.