Anchor Development presents three options for Old County Courthouse site; commissioners weigh demolition, sale, or adaptive reuse

Anchor Development returned to a Forsyth County briefing on Dec. 1 to present three distinct options for using the Old County Courthouse site for affordable housing and related community programs.

Lori Ingram (executive director, introduced at the meeting and speaking for Anchor) described the three options: an adaptive-reuse plan to convert the existing courthouse into roughly 165–200 rental units with a 15,000–20,000 sq. ft. ground-floor grocery and on-site supportive services; a demolition-and-rebuild plan for a podium-style building with 90–120 units; and a sale/proceeds model that would split sale revenue into a community land trust, rental stabilization, and a home-repair/down-payment assistance fund.

Anchor estimated adaptive reuse redevelopment costs at about $50 million with a roughly $20 million financing gap; Ingram said the group was not asking the county to fill that gap at this time and that "we would only be asking for the building to come from the county." She also said demolition estimates are ‘‘$1–2,000,000’’ and that a $2.6 million sale example was used in the model to show how proceeds could seed other programs.

Commissioners pressed Anchor on feasibility and funding. Commissioner questions covered whether Anchor had inspected the building (Anchor said they had reviewed plans but not conducted a full on-site inspection), typical project sizes in Anchor’s portfolio (Anchor said projects range from 6 to roughly 200 units, with an average about 70), likely rent targets and subsidy assumptions (Anchor estimated a target range of about $550–$750 per month depending on the subsidy stack), and how purchase or demolition costs would affect overall affordability. Anchor representatives stressed experience with tax-credit financing and applying for gap funding such as Federal Home Loan Bank awards.

The county attorney advised commissioners that some options would effectively be budget requests and that county authority to transfer money or land to nonprofits for affordable housing can be limited; the attorney recommended a community needs study and said a referendum could be necessary for broader county involvement in housing programs. Commissioners also discussed procurement implications of an upset-bid sale process already under way for the courthouse and the risk of losing a current bidder if the county paused that process.

Commissioners expressed a range of views: some favored preserving the sale process to generate a pool of funds they could then allocate to housing programs; others urged more creative county involvement, including identifying other county properties that could be used for affordable housing. The Anchor team offered to provide a community-land-trust briefing and additional financial details on gap financing and the effect of purchase/demolition costs on rents.

There was no formal action taken at the briefing; commissioners asked staff and Anchor to supply additional numbers and legal analysis for future consideration.