Highlands Residential Still Trying To Acquire Property For Low Income Housing

Cookeville’s Highlands Residential hopes to hear this week about its offer to buy 14 acres off Jackson St.

Highland Residential offered $650,000 for the plot. Executive Director Dow Harris said he hopes to acquire the property to build at least 200 low income housing.

“Well there could be a combination of public housing, it could be some work force type housing,” Harris said. “It could certainly be all in the affordable housing category. For instance, some tax credit properties that we’re going to be building over there [at] Hickory Valley, that’s 60 percent of our median income. Public housing I think is up to 80 percent of our median income.”

The property was purchased by a group of investors from New York. Harris said the Highland Residential broker submitted their development master plan to the investors’ broker.

Harris said progress has been slow due to the pandemic.

“If they accept our offer, then we of course proceed immediately with the due diligence to research the property and what we need to do to make sure we can accomplish our master development plans,” Harris said. “[Also] to make sure that there might be some core drilling that needs to be done and some soil testing and things like that.”

Highlands Residential is also working on acquiring a property off of Buffalo Valley Road. Harris said he believes this low income housing project will be a great benefit to the community.