Delois Nettles on Monday afternoon was elated as she stood inside her residence in the new Five Points Crossing apartments off Tarboro Street.
“I just love it. I just love it. I just love it,” Nettles, 75, said not long after an official opening ceremony just outside the $9.5 million, four-story, 50-unit building designed to be in a downtown urban setting.
Nettles for the first time Thursday night got to sleep in her new home, which is a spacious two-bedroom apartment.
“Sometimes, I don’t really sleep that well at night, but that night I slept all night,” Nettles said.
The Five Points Crossing development was constructed to provide homes for residents who earn up to 60 percent of the area’s median income.
The development has 28 one-bedroom units and 22 two-bedroom units, with the monthly rent for a one-bedroom unit being $500 and the monthly rent for a two-bedroom unit being $564.
The development was officially opened amid ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown and in a city where hurricanes such as Florence in 2018, Matthew in 2016 and Floyd in 1999 affected the housing stock locally.
Near the end of the opening ceremony Monday afternoon, Nettles and another new Five Points Crossing resident, Dorothy Marshman, briefly addressed the gathering amid sunny skies and cool and breezy weather conditions.
“I’m so excited I can’t even talk,” Nettles said.
Nettles is from Rocky Mount but for more than a year she had been commuting to Knightdale and staying with her son, who is a truck driver.
Nettles told the gathering that she is grateful that the Five Points Crossing development has allowed her to be back on her stomping grounds in the city.
Marshman told the gathering of being nervous.
“But, anyway, I love this. I love it,” Marshman said.
Marshman expressed appreciation to everyone who had something to do with her becoming a Five Points Crossing resident.
“Now I’ve got a home of my own, something that I can call my own,” she said.
The speakers at the opening ceremony included Clay Cooper, a vice president and director of development for Ohio-based Woda Cooper Companies, which is the city of Rocky Mount’s development partner in the project. Cooper’s father, David, is the president of the company.
Of Five Points Crossing, Clay Cooper said that he believes the residents are going to make this place home.
“We provided the sticks and bricks and people provided financing, but it’s the stories that they’ll make here. It’s the memories they’ll make,” Clay Cooper said of the new residents having a new place to call home.
An official groundbreaking ceremony occurred in June 2022 at what was a vacant site just southeast of downtown’s Five Points intersection and across Tarboro from Edgecombe Community College’s Rocky Mount campus.
The development received help from two main funding sources: The N.C. Housing Finance Agency and the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency.
The N.C. Housing Finance Agency is a self-supporting public organization created in 1973 by the N.C. General Assembly and finances affordable housing opportunities for North Carolinians whose needs are not met by the market.
The N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency manages programs statewide that include homeowner recovery, infrastructure, affordable housing, resiliency, strategic buyouts and local government grants and loans.
Laura Hogshead, who is the director of the office of recovery and resiliency, spoke at the official opening ceremony of the Five Points Crossing development Monday afternoon and told the attendees, “You might wonder why the hurricane lady is here.”
Hogshead said that she and her team are dedicated to providing an opportunity for people affected by hurricanes to come back to the communities they love.
Of the Five Points Crossing development, Hogshead said, “This is a project where you get to say, ‘What if we said yes?”
Hogshead said that was a rallying cry for those involved in this project.
“A few years ago, a bunch of people said, ‘What if we said yes? What if we took the brave step of making the first big multifamily affordable development downtown? What if we just said: Let’s make it work?’
“And a bunch of people said yes,” Hogshead said.
Charles Mullen, a Rocky Mount native and a home builder, serves on the board of the housing finance agency.
Mullen made clear to the gathering that he is aware daily of the need for housing — “housing from affordable housing on up the gamut,” he noted.
Mullen also pointed out that he and others have seen a decrease in housing stock locally all the way back to the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd.
Overall, Mullen said, “High quality and affordable homes are the foundation of the strong communities — and we are proud to be part of this investment in Rocky Mount.”
Mayor Sandy Roberson told the gathering that the Five Points Crossing development is also hopefully going to be part of the City Council’s vision to create 500 units downtown to help spark revitalization in the heart of Rocky Mount.
Roberson also made clear that not only is there a need for affordable housing but for housing in general.
“There’s no such thing as too much affordable housing. There’s no such thing as too much workforce housing,” Roberson said.
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