By Liz Holland

A city parking lot sitting between Route 50, West Main Street and the Wicomico River is set to become the site of affordable housing in Salisbury’s Downtown.

On Monday night, City Council members authorized Mayor Jake Day to enter into a revised land disposition agreement with Green Street Housing LLC for the sale and redevelopment of Lot 30.

The project will include 80 apartments with rents priced for low- to moderate-income residents, with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, according to plans submitted to the city by Green Street.

Day said the planned apartments along with those at the nearby Rivers Edge complex will help ensure affordable housing remains available on the city’s West Side.

The project planned for Lot 30 will include two five-story buildings, one of which will have common areas and amenity spaces for the apartments and commercial space of up to 10,000 square feet on the ground level. The commercial space will house a public market – a place that Day said could offer fresh produce and other foods from multiple vendors.

The other building will have four stories of apartments above ground level parking.

The developers also plan to raise the height of the existing bulkheading and extend the Riverwalk. Hard scaping and landscaping is planned for the transition between the buildings and the Riverwalk.

The apartments will all be financed, in part, by low-income housing tax credits and will primarily serve households earning less than 60 percent of the area median income.

Parking for the project will include a mix of on-street and off-street, as well as spaces under one building, and parking on the parcel known as 501 Willow St. that will be leased from the city. The project will also have access to parking on the city’s Lot 33 on West Main Street near Brew River restaurant and the city Bark Park.

Lot 30, which was declared surplus property back in 2014, is one of several city parking lots and land that are planned for redevelopment, including the nearby Marina Landing which will offer market rate apartments above commercial spaces on the ground floor at the Salisbury Marina. That development is “very close” to breaking ground, Day said.

“Hopefully soon they can move dirt,” he said.

In February, negotiations began with Mentis Capital Partners for Lot 10, a large city-owned parking lot next to the state office building that has attracted interest from various parties since it was declared surplus property in 2016.

Mentis Capital Partners founder and CEO Nick Simpson also is behind The Ross, a multi-story building under construction on East Main Street.

City Council members also recently approved another 180-day exclusive negotiating period to Salisbury Town Center Apartments LLC for the purchase of Parking Lot 15. The property was declared surplus in November. The developers have offered $50,000 for it.

Lot 15 is a smaller parking lot on Market Street opposite the Riverview Commons building and next to the Powell Building.

The 19,730-square-foot lot also sits opposite to Lot 1 which is owned by Salisbury Town Center Apartments. The developers are planning 240 apartments and commercial spaces on that lot which will include a town square on the Division Street side.