Cooks Corner workforce housing costs soar

Up by nearly a third since 2021

The Middlesex County Board of Supervisors (MCBS) learned in February that the cost of building a 24-unit workforce housing complex at Cooks Corner has increased approximately 25% to 30% from when it was first priced in 2021.

Bay Aging official Alan Walker informed the board that it would cost approximately $5,644,000 to build the project today and Bay Aging is in the process of searching for $2.8 million of currently un-pledged funding sources to begin the project.

The workforce housing project is seeking to provide reasonable rentable homes for school teachers, sheriff’s office personnel, low income families and other Middlesex County employees moving into the county and seeking affordable housing.

The workforce housing project was originally part of a 2019 Cooks Corner Revitalization Project. The funding for the housing then was tied to a public-private partnership agreement to build a brewpub and restaurant on the old Rappahannock Central Elementary School grounds at Cooks Corner, in front of the Middlesex Pet Friends for Life Dog Park.

When that project died because of ramifications of COVID-19 in 2020, the grant funding for workforce housing was dropped by the U.S. Department of Housing and Community Development. The county, however, decided to pursue the project in November 2021 with Bay Aging taking over the helm.