Spartanburg City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 14 to approve a fee-in-lieu-of-taxes incentive package clearing the way for a 48-unit affordable apartment complex at 120 E. Kennedy Street, right next to the Kennedy Street Parking Garage. The city is putting real money and land behind the project, and construction is expected to begin later this year.
According to a report, the complex will rise on city-owned property, and Spartanburg has committed $540,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding to help make it happen. The city is also contributing the vacant land itself, according to city officials. Under the fee-in-lieu agreement, developer SCG Development is set to pay $50,000 in taxes during the first year following construction, per the same report.
Who Qualifies to Live There
The building will offer a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, with rents capped at 30 percent of a tenant's income, the report notes. Eligible tenants must earn between 20 and 70 percent of Spartanburg County's Area Median Income — for a three-person household, that works out to an income of $51,756 or less, according to the report.
City officials have framed the project as a way to keep downtown living within reach for a broad range of Spartanburg residents, including downtown service industry workers, per Fox Carolina. That goal fits into a larger push the city has been making with its federal pandemic relief dollars over the past couple of years.
A Bigger Push Funded by ARPA Dollars
In 2024, City Council allocated $5 million of the city's federal ARPA funding specifically to spur new affordable housing development, according to the City of Spartanburg. That amount represented nearly a third of the $17.1 million in ARPA funding the community received overall, the city says. As of this past summer, the city reported that $3.8 million of that pool had already been distributed and had helped leverage more than $60 million in development either proposed or underway, representing around 200 units reserved for renters and homebuyers earning at or below 80 percent of area median income.
The 48-unit Kennedy Street project follows an earlier, separate effort to bring affordable apartments to roughly the same stretch of downtown. In 2022, the city approved the sale of a 2.6-acre lot at South Converse and Kennedy streets to developer Blue Walls RE LLC for $4,500, according to the Post and Courier. That plan called for 55 affordable units — a breakdown of 17 studios, 17 one-bedroom and 21 two-bedroom apartments — leased to residents making no more than 80 percent of the area's median income, with construction expected to begin in spring 2023 and the developer planning to seek state Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
State-level financing tools like those tax credits are administered through South Carolina Housing, which finances affordable rental housing construction statewide and awards federal housing tax credits, low-interest loans and tax-exempt financing, according to SC Housing. For now, the newly approved Kennedy Street project stands as the latest concrete step in Spartanburg's effort to keep its downtown affordable, with groundbreaking anticipated before the year is out.
