Community Spotlight: Palmetto Family Receives Redevelopment Home

PALMETTO – Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant and Dorothy Montgomery walked through Montgomery’s new home, donated by a local bank in early 2014 and rehabilitated by the Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency. It was a blighted structure in a nice neighborhood, with decent concrete walls, a roof and little else. It had been the attention of unlicensed contractor work violations by the City of Palmetto Building Department. But in the eyes of the CRA, it was an opportunity to grow the community and remove Montgomery’s old blighted residential structure on 10th Street, a prime commercial corridor in the CRA area.

“What a fabulous opportunity for us to take a negative and turn it into a home for a family,” said Mayor Bryant,” what makes it even more fabulous, is the removal of another old dilapidated structure and the creation a commercial lot for the CRA to redevelop in the future. That is getting twice the value for our work.”

The renovation of the house took a few months and cost the CRA approximately $40,000 dollars. Some of the funds came from the ticket donations of the Palmetto 4th of July Festival concert with Scottie McCreery earlier in 2014. The work was completed by Delesline Construction Inc. and includes new windows, cabinets, flooring and air conditioning. CRA representative, Antoinette Kilgore, noted that Palmetto building code officials provided inspections on the new home, to guarantee it meets current building safety standards and reviewed Montgomery’s old home to verify the existence of blight for the CRA. “In fact”, said Kilgore, “our code enforcement staff arranged for the Palmetto Peace Makers, local charitable organization, to clean up the outside of the new home.”

“Using our resources like the CRA, code enforcement and the building department as a team to see projects like this happen, makes our City more livable and build our tax base.” said Mayor Bryant.

Final arrangements of the transfer are underway and should be completed within the next thirty days. For more information, please contact the Palmetto CRA at 941-209-0467 or JBurton@PalmettoCRA.org.

Antoinette Kilgore, CRA representative stands with the Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant, home-owner Dorothy Montgomery, Terry Hatchert and contractor Jon Delesline.