Jackson Free Press

The building at 300 W. Capitol St. is the nicest public housing in the state. Or so its last two occupants—currently, Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, and his predecessor, Haley Barbour—like to quip about the domicile, better known as the Mississippi Governor's Mansion.

The line always draws a laugh. The joke's intended humor lies in the idea that while "public housing" is typically reserved for poor people who receive government assistance, the governor's residence is a mansion occupied by a guy with a six-figure salary paid out of the state treasury.

All around the Governor's Mansion, however, sit properties that are ripe for conversion into actual lower-income, or even public, housing. For example, next week, Oxford-based Chartre Consulting will break ground on 88 townhomes near the historic Mt. Helm Baptist Church. Other developers are eyeing properties in and around downtown for low-income housing as well.

While Bryant has given some of these developments his full support, he bristled at the idea of one low-income housing development sitting a couple blocks away from where he rests his boots at night. That development, slated for the 200 block of West Capitol Street, and known as the Capitol Art Lofts, would have also been built using housing tax credits to attract members of an inherently low-income profession: artists.

Working artists would be the preferred tenants, creating opportunities for young creatives to inject an exciting, new kind of vibe into downtown.

It was a partnership between New Orleans' HRI Properties, which participated in the renovations of the Standard Life buildings and King Edward, and up-and-coming duo of Alan Henderson and Matthew Bolian of BlackWhite Development. Henderson is African American and Bolian, who also interned for a time at the Jackson Free Press, is white. In those ways, the project had potential to be something unique among real-estate developments: collaborative, reflective of diversity and intergenerational.

As the Jackson Free Press reports this week (page 8), all that energy is perilously close to being wasted. Developers behind Capitol Art Lofts were unsuccessful in attracting housing tax credits because Mississippi Home Corporation had already given away its full allotment, nearly $70 million, a year in advance. Nor are the enthusiastic entrepreneurs behind BlackWhite involved any longer.

The setback is a huge blow for downtown housing, not to mention a needed makeover of a downtown that still shows too little life much of the time.

We have long called for downtown leaders and building owners to make it possible for and seek out creative residents and businesses (such as Capital Towers did for our company's relocation downtown). You simply can't just say the words "creative class" and think that downtown can get there without giving access to the young artists and professionals, and their businesses, that make downtown an exciting destination and place to live.

Gov. Bryant and other leaders must put aside their fear of anything "low-income" and help clear the way for a new downtown, not put up roadblocks to its success.