Property owners on West Deaderick Street near North Highland Avenue should see an increase in home values after the process of demolishing two abandoned houses began Wednesday.
The houses – 133 and 137 West Deaderick Street – became the first to be razed in Jackson under the Tennessee Blight Elimination Program.
“I call it addition by subtraction,” said Ralph Perrey, executive director of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency. “It’s frightening and extremely frustrating for homeowners to watch a house down the block fall into blight because it’s been abandoned by its owners.”
Continuing, Perrey said. “Through no fault of your own, your home starts losing value and you’re exposed to a number of growing risks – fire, vermin and criminal activity.”
The property is in the shadows of Jackson Walk Phase I, and easy walking distance to Jackson’s City Hall and the University of Memphis at Lambuth’s campus.
“Getting rid of this eyesore is going to be an immediate relief for the families in this neighborhood,” said Chris Alexander, vice president of Retail & Development for Healthy Community LLC. “The blight program is going to speed up our ongoing efforts to revitalize this part of town and enhance its desirability as a place to buy a home and raise a family.”
Alexander also mentioned Phase II of Jackson Walk, where 120 new apartments and 40 single-family residences are being constructed on a 10-acre site on West Deaderick Street, slightly west of where the houses were being demolished Wednesday.
“This is a new phase that we are going into, to start doing some demolition on blighted structures in the neighborhood where we’ve been working,” Hal Crocker said. “We’re starting here on Deaderick Street, because there is a street enhancement project underway, and we thought eliminating this would be kind of key to making the whole street better for the current property owners and for the new construction also.”
Hal Crocker is a co-developer of Healthy Community LLC with Memphian Henry Turley.
“I admire what you are doing in the neighborhood,” Turley said. “North (Jackson) is nice, but this is the historic part of the City.”
(PHOTO: Chris Alexander discusses the demolition of blighted houses. He is pictured near a house at 133 W. Deaderick St., that was demolished, Wednesday)
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