THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WCTV) – More affordable housing is on the way in Thomasville.

On Monday, local leaders held a groundbreaking on the historic Douglass High School campus, where 52 new apartments will be built. 80% of those will be income-based.

“My family goes back four generations at this school, so it means a lot to me,” Earl Williams with the Thomasville Community Development Corporation said. “I grew up in this community.”

Part of the Douglass High School building has been preserved as a historic site for years, and now classrooms will be turned into apartments, specifically for people 55 and older.

“The bulk of the population that’s moving to Thomasville are people 55 and over, so there’s a huge demand for housing,” Williams said.

Two other buildings on the property, including the Jack Hadley Black History Museum, will be torn down to build the rest of the apartments. The museum will be moving to a new location.

“There’s a lot of history here,” Williams said. “We want to hold on to it, and we want to build new stuff, but we want to make sure we don’t forget the past by leaving assets there for people to see and understand why this means so much.”

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Betty Jones is on the alumni board for Douglass High School and has lived in the neighborhood for the past 20 years.

“It’s kind of disheartening when I drive by and I see the way it is now, and it’s not the way it used to be – not when I was in school and not when we walked these grounds,” Jones said. “So, I’m very proud and very happy that this is happening to our community.”

She says, with many senior citizens living on a fixed income, this development is necessary.

“This is a very important project for us to make sure that our senior citizens are taken care of, and that they have affordable housing and something they can be proud to live in,” Jones said.

Williams says the $23 million redevelopment project should take about 18 months to complete, and when they finish this project, he says they’ll start on the Balfour school site next.

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