Columbia’s derelict Grand Motel on Two Notch Road to become new workforce, family housing
A derelict motel on a busy stretch of Columbia’s Two Notch Road will be remade into a gated community with mixed rents for families to find attainable housing.
Under the plan, the Grand Motel at 3003 Two Notch Road, a storied but deteriorating motel built in the 1950s, will become Grand Village, a gated housing village with 40 apartment homes at varying price points and a community center.
The goal: Give families, as well as teachers, firefighters and other Columbia professionals an affordable place to call home in a city where rents keep rising.
The entire project will include demolition of some of the existing property, rehabilitation of some existing units as well as new construction, and is estimated to cost $9 million in all, according to the nonprofit Homeless No More, which is leading the effort.
The nonprofit has already received a $1 million grant from United Way of the Midlands — part of a $10 million donation to the regional United Way branch made by philanthropist and Amazon cofounder Mackenzie Scott (formerly married to Jeff Bezos.)
Years ago, Lila Anna Sauls and her colleagues at Homeless No More were confronted with a problem.
Families were finding great success with the nonprofit’s transitional housing program St. Lawrence Place, which allows families experiencing homelessness to stay for up to two years while they take classes and position themselves to find permanent housing.
“Our families are doing everything they need to be doing. They’re working, they’re learning these incredible new skills, but they have nowhere to go when they graduate,” Sauls remembered a case manager at St. Lawrence Place telling her in 2015.
The housing costs in Columbia were just too high for those families to find affordable rents.
“I said OK, let’s build some houses,” Sauls said.
They launched Live Oak Place, a sister organization dedicated solely to the creation of affordable and attainable housing.
Grand Village is just one portion of the goal. By the end of next year, Sauls said Live Oak Place will have 300 housing units completed or in progress.
Grand Village will be plenty unique, however.
The development will keep the iconic neon sign that has announced the motel to passersby for decades.
There will be 20 one- or two-bedroom apartments and 20 studios. As with other Live Oak Place projects, there will be an income limit on who can apply for one of the units, which will be rented at varying costs.
“You don’t create what you call a ‘pocket of poverty,’” Sauls said. “What it looks like is, you may have some families at this income, living next to other families at (a different) income, which is how you get the idea of teachers and firefighters living next to a single mother with three children.”
They want to create a community worthy of any Columbia neighborhood, she added.
In addition to the housing, Homeless No More also will coordinate programs at a community center to be built on the property. The nonprofit envisions the center as a home to after-school programs, mentorship opportunities and healthy cooking classes, among others.
The Central Carolina Community Foundation has given Homeless No More $50,000 for the community center.
Not all of the project details have been ironed out. Development will be split into two phases, and the nonprofit is still seeking additional funding to complete the entire development.
At least some units are expected to be move-in ready by 2024.
This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 2:00 PM.
