Foshee Develops Columbus Square First Phase
The previous contractor for the Montgomery Housing Authority’s Columbus Square project had a conflict.
The firm asked several companies to bid on the project’s first phase, which is 80 apartment units. Columbus Square, which replaces the housing authority’s Trenholm Court, will have between 250 and 300 units adjacent to Old Alabama Town.
Foshee Design & Construction is handling the first phase. “We are the contractor only on this (project),” said John H. Foshee, manager of Foshee Design & Construction. “We’re not developers. We have no ownership of the project. Typically, we develop from the concepts and then work through the design stage; work through the pricing; construction phase; and also own the project. My brother (Golsan Foshee) runs an apartment management company.”
He said his firm first got involved in the project in April and signed contracts in late summer.
The first phase will cost an estimated $13.2 million. Site work, which began in July, should be completed in October. Construction will be completed next year. John Foshee expects that the original contractor will be in charge of the second and third phases. The first phase will have 23 one-bedroom units; 45 two-bedroom units; 12 three-bedroom units; and a community room.
“Columbus Square will be an invaluable asset to Montgomery, adding rooftops to a downtown district that has become fertile ground for economic activity,” Montgomery Housing Authority Executive Director Evette Hester said in an earlier statement. “It will fill a demand for high-quality, affordable housing in Montgomery.”
The company recently finished the last apartment building at The Morgan at EastChase, a $20 million-plus project. Tenants have been moving into the 216-unit complex. Foshee Design & Construction bought the land; designed the complex; built it; and Foshee Management Co. will manage it.
0Restaurants Coming to Lower Dexter Avenue
October 2016
By David Zaslawsky
Two more restaurants – Momma Goldberg’s Deli and Island Delight – are coming to Lower Dexter Avenue and should be open by the end of the year.
Both will be located at District 36, which is four buildings owned by the Foshee companies, including the former Belk building. There will be 28 loft apartments at the site and John H. Foshee, manager of Foshee Design & Construction, said the units should be completed at the end of October.
There is still commercial space available on the first floor as well as a large basement.
The company is also developing four buildings that are called District 72, and that includes Cucos Mexican Café. Because the four buildings are smaller than District 36, it will have 15 loft apartments and four to six commercial spaces, Foshee said. Work on the buildings will start next year and will be completed in either late 2017 or early 2018, he said.
Work is also being done on an alley between the two buildings, with the businesses to face the alley, according to Foshee.
There are no current plans for the other four to five buildings the company owns. One of those is the Winter Building, which was built 1840 as a branch of the Bank of St. Mary’s and the site where a telegram was sent from a second-floor office to order Confederate troops to fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C.
“We want to see how the market does with these first ones and decide after that,” Foshee said about the remaining buildings.
