March 31st, 2017 by Justin Perkins
Months after grading work started, partners in the 124‐unit RiverPoint Apartment Homes development adjacent to State Mutual Stadium held a formal groundbreaking Thursday. Charles Williams Jr. told a crowd of city and county government officials and local business leaders he anticipates the upscale, eco‐friendly apartment complex will be completed by Feb. 1, 2018. “We already have four leases,” Williams told a crowd of about 50. “We’re already getting a lot of inquiries and we haven’t really started our marketing effort yet. We hope to have a website up and running within a week or two.” Williams said three‐bedroom units on upper levels of the four‐story apartment buildings are generating the most interest
John Quinlivan, Rome Floyd Chamber board chairman, told onlookers that the apartments will fill a need for housing, particularly apartment housing, in Rome. “We have 36 resident physicians‐in‐training here for four years at a time and this kind of housing would be perfect for them,” he said. Williams saluted city and county officials for helping develop a tax allocation district financing package to offset the project’s cost. “We wouldn’t be standing here today if it weren’t for the public‐private partnership with the city and county,” he said. “We have worked on this for a very long time,” said City Commissioner Evie McNiece. “And we’re so excited about what’s going to happen here.” The TAD package calls for the developers to receive $220,000 a year for 15 years — a total of $3.3 million. The money comes from the incremental increase in property tax values on the property. Williams said Spriggs Construction Co. has gotten a million‐dollar contract for infrastructure work at the site. Williams pledged that the general contractor, Marietta‐based TuckerCraft Inc., would use as many local subcontractors as possible during the construction phase.
— Doug Walker