This public notice appeared on the City of Wilson’s website, http://www.wilsonnc.org, on 10 March 2024. Pender Street Park lies within historic East Wilson and was once the site of housing for workers employed in nearby tobacco factories and cotton oil mills. The City recently announced plans to develop affordable housing near the park.
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Please join us for a public meeting to discuss future plans for Pender Street Park and Center. City staff and the project team will present options for the new park and center and solicit feedback from the public on potential designs.
WHEN: Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 6 p.m.
WHERE: 300 Pender Street, Wilson, NC 27893
Last year the city announced plans for Pender Crossing, a new affordable housing project near the site of Pender Street Park. The multifamily property will include 48 apartments with a mix of 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom units and will have onsite parking, a community building, and other amenities. The apartments will be priced to be affordable by people who work in the surrounding area.
The city will build a new park and center in the area. This public meeting will provide additional details on the park relocation and site layout, as well as review the amenities proposed for the new center. These amenities include a basketball court, playground, open space, a walking path, shelter, and meeting space. During the meeting, the team will share potential park and center designs and provide ways for the public to provide input.
This is a great opportunity to have your voice heard in the planning phase of this exciting new development!
Hat tip to R. Briggs Sherwood for alerting B.W.A. to this notice.
As quoted from this town announcement….”The apartments will be priced to be affordable by people who work in the surrounding area.”
WORD ALERTS: “Affordable” and “surrounding area”.
{The devil is always in the details; listen carefully and beg the question}
BTW, this entire area was both my mother’s and my father’s ancestral grounds dating back to the late 1800’s.
It’d be interesting to get the specific definitions of those terms in this context.
While the city is at it, when in the world will they demolish that old, dilapidated building with the wretched looking red tin roof -in this photo pictured in this article- that has been there since forever and is a health hazard due to its former life of over one hundred years ago with peanut oil then cotton seed oil manufacturing (according to my mother who is now 96 ) and has to be infested with snakes, rats, and other varmints that were lurking in that same field, abandoned, when I was a child…and I’m now 71?
My eco heart goes out to the precious dirt it’s sitting on and the precious people who have lived in that area who included both sets of my grandparents and their children and countless others who lived and died in the immediate area and inhaled its toxic waste for far too long!! Historic my foot!!! I know that It would not still be standing in other neighborhoods “across the tracks”. Why here?
Just emailed my concerns as stated above to Mayor Stevens.
Thanks for keeping all informed Briggs and Lisa.