OKTIBBEHA COUNTY – A new neighborhood development is coming to east Oktibbeha County, Atlanta-based real estate development firm Forest Street Partners announced Thursday.
The project spans a 98-acre property off Highway 182, adjacent to Triangle Drywall Supply, that will eventually house a fully gated community with swimming and recreational areas.
District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer said the new development will help address growing housing needs in the county.
“It’s going to provide some needed homes for these individuals who will be acquiring some of these jobs that are available at some of the industries that are here in the Golden Triangle,” he told The Dispatch on Thursday. “Plus it’s going to help add to the tax base once that development is built out.”
Pace Stead, a Starkville resident and the firm’s project representative, said preliminary plans for the first phase of development include 150 homes. A completion date for that phase hasn’t been determined.
The neighborhood will have a mix of housing options, ranging from starter homes young professionals could purchase to larger homes for families. Filling the housing needs for those demographics will help keep more families and graduating students in Starkville, he said.
“People are graduating, whether it’s veterinarians or physical therapists or all the different degrees at Mississippi State, and they can’t stay,” Stead said. “There’s no housing that they can afford.”
He would not share the target price point with The Dispatch upon request Thursday. He also didn’t disclose the firm’s estimated capital investment in the project.
Stead said location was one of the driving factors in developing the property. Living on the east side of the county will give residents who commute faster access to West Point and Columbus, he said, not to mention the proximity to industry jobs at the Golden Triangle Industrial Park.
“All three cities offer great stuff,” he said. “When you get on the west side of town and the south side of town, no one wants to commute that far. Then you look at (Aluminum Dynamics) coming in, (Steel Dynamics) and all the other jobs.”
Joe Max Higgins, CEO of the Golden Triangle Development LINK, agreed the neighborhood’s location is one of the biggest upsides of the project. It has the potential to bring more professionals to the area, he said.
“If you work at Mississippi State, you’re 15 minutes from work. … If you work at the Golden Triangle (Industrial Park) you’re 15 minutes from work,” he told The Dispatch. “It seems to me it’s just a neat place that you could live and be anywhere you wanted to be.”
The development has been on hold for more than a year because it is dependent on the East Oktibbeha Wastewater District expanding services to the area. That can’t happen until Starkville upgrades its wastewater treatment plant, which East Oktibbeha uses, to accept additional capacity.
It looks like those projects are lined up and moving forward.
Supervisors agreed in late August to install a new line running parallel to Highway 182. Trainer said the board allocated $700,000 in American Rescue Plan funds toward the project, which will double with a matching grant from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
With the bids for the project already out, Stead said the development is finally prepared to move forward.
“It’s been 14 months to get the approval for the wastewater line, so that’s really what’s been holding us back from investing much more,” he said. “Now that the board of supervisors got it solidified … we’ve decided to go ahead and move forward.”
It will be two to three years before the new line will be fully installed, plenty of time for the city to upgrade its treatment plant.
Mayor Lynn Spruill said new aerators will take a year to 18 months to install, and new headworks will take another year after that.
“They just would not be able to come online until that is done, and we won’t provide them a will serve letter until we’re sure that we can serve,” Spruill said.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
