A developer has unveiled plans for a $343 million housing complex on a 15-acre site near Durham Bulls Athletic Park that could ultimately deliver nearly 1,000 mixed-income apartments and townhomes, framing the project as a tribute to the historic Hayti community that once thrived just across the freeway. The site, adjacent to downtown Durham, currently contains vacant homes left over from the former Forest Hills Heights public housing community.
The Durham Housing Authority selected The Integral Group to develop the project, named Tribute Rising, according to CBS 17. Kate Goodwin said the project is a tribute to the history of Black Wall Street and the Hayti community, and Jordan Jones said the development is focused on representing Hayti's history while giving whole households the opportunity to live on the site. The Integral Group was first in the United States to develop mixed-income housing, having pioneered the approach in 1994 when it partnered with the Atlanta Housing Authority to transform Techwood Homes, the nation's first public housing project, into Centennial Place, according to McCormack Baron Salazar.
Breaking Ground on the First of Three Phases
The developer plans to break ground in 2027, with the first phase expected to be completed in 2028, per the same CBS 17 report. That first phase alone will bring more than 300 units of mixed-income, for-rent housing, and a more detailed breakdown reported by Bisnow puts the total at 332 multi-family units, split between 139 affordable units, 85 workforce units, and 108 market-rate units, plus 16 townhomes and a 55-unit senior-only building made up entirely of one-bedroom apartments.
Financing for that first phase includes $19 million from the Durham Housing Authority, $19 million in developer equity, and an $80 million permanent loan, according to the CBS 17 report. The $19 million public contribution is drawn from municipal housing bond dollars allocated through the city's voter-approved Forever Home, Durham program, according to the City of Durham. The project also qualified for expedited municipal site plan review because Phase 1 includes at least 100 dedicated affordable units set aside for households earning 50% to 60% of the Area Median Income, per the project's own site at tributerising.com.
Commercial Space and a Home for the Black Farmers' Market
The first phase will also include an extension of Kate's Korner Learning Center and a new home for the Black Farmers' Market, per CBS 17's reporting. Built out over an estimated seven to ten years across all three phases, Tribute Rising is projected to eventually include more than 900 homes and up to 73,000 square feet of commercial space, with the first phase alone designated for 12,000 square feet for local businesses, a childcare center, and the Black Farmers' Market's permanent site, according to Tribute Rising's project overview. Timelines for the second and third phases remain undetermined, CBS 17 reports.
Reconnecting a Neighborhood Cut Off by the Freeway
The symbolism behind Tribute Rising traces back to a painful chapter in Durham's history. Between the late 1950s and 1970s, federal urban renewal programs and the construction of the Durham Freeway, also known as NC 147, demolished more than 200 acres of the historic Hayti neighborhood, once known as Black Wall Street, displacing more than 4,000 families and 500 Black-owned businesses, according to INDY Week. Tribute Rising is named to pay tribute to leaders in the Hayti neighborhood and will include public spaces acknowledging and paying tribute to that history, per the CBS 17 report.
Architecture firm City Collective designed the Tribute Rising master plan to reintroduce a historically inspired street grid and public spaces, including Lakewood Park, with the explicit goal of physically reconnecting the 15-acre site to downtown Durham across the highway divide, according to City Collective. A study of mixed-income housing projects by researchers Jones and Harvard found they have had a significant impact on transforming lives across the country, per CBS 17's reporting.
Part of a Larger Wave of Investment in Hayti
Tribute Rising is not the only major project reshaping the area. It is one piece of the Durham Housing Authority's Downtown and Neighborhood Plan, launched in 2022, which aims to create more than 1,700 residential units and replace 447 aging public housing units across downtown properties including Fayette Place, Liberty Street, and J.J. Henderson Tower, according to the Durham Housing Authority. In May, the housing authority and Durham Community Partners broke ground on a separate effort, The Villages of Hayti, a $17 million city-bond-supported project building 252 fully affordable units on the long-vacant 19.8-acre Fayette Place site.
The City of Durham's Transportation Department has also been examining the freeway divide itself, completing its Reimagine Durham Freeway study earlier this year to evaluate options such as a boulevard conversion or highway caps and land bridges aimed at repairing the historical division and reconnecting Hayti to central downtown, according to the City of Durham. Hoodline previously reported on a separate $10M revitalization plan along the Fayetteville Street corridor managed by Hayti Promise CDC, part of the same broader push to restore the neighborhood's economic base.
