The City of Spartanburg, FUSE, and Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM) are working together to turn promising development sites and interested partners into real, financeable housing projects. Spartanburg’s nationally recognized Northside revitalization shows what coordinated, place-based investment can achieve, and Movement 2030 offers a shared framework for economic mobility. SAM’s research has long tied school transience, often caused by housing disruption, to poorer outcomes for the city’s highest-need students. The City has identified priority sites, including four in the Highland neighborhood, is building relationships with CRA-focused banks and philanthropic investors, and has a state-of-housing study underway to guide its direction. I
n the first 90 days, FUSE Executive Fellow Kevin Boyett will meet with City leadership, the Spartanburg Housing Authority, Northside Development Group, Highland leaders, A Place to Call Home, philanthropy, banking partners, and SAM, while reviewing site inventories, opportunity zones, and financing tools like low-income housing tax credits. Boyett will then assess each priority site for feasibility, ownership, and zoning, build preliminary sources-and-uses and cash flow models, recruit experienced mixed-income developers, and develop an investment case for funders and banks such as Fifth Third. Working with SAM, Boyett will align site priorities with the neighborhoods where housing investment will most help children, and will coordinate closely with the parallel Housing Strategy fellow. By Fall 2027, deliverables will include site feasibility assessments, project-level financial models, a developer partnership pipeline, a housing investment case and funding strategy, and a transition plan for long-term ownership of the pipeline function.
