Beginning in the Spring of 2019, the Scott Family began planning the construction of a courtyard townhouse project on School Avenue in Fayetteville. Working with MBL Planning, the client outlined a vision for the project that would make it one of very few true examples of “Missing Middle Housing” to be constructed downtown in the last 50 years.
 
The project resulted in two five-plex townhouse buildings that are both familiar and innovative in their historic downtown context. The buildings are dignified but not ostentatious, instead allowing nearby civic landmarks such as TheatreSquared and the Walton Arts Center to take Center Stage. The new project, lovingly called Act One in honor of its theatrical neighbors, provides housing just footsteps away from Fayetteville’s best amenities on the Cultural Arts Corridor, while providing rental income for the Scott Family.
 
The design team delivered the buildings at a very affordable (2020) rate of approximately $135 per square foot by skillfully navigating overlapping code regimes. The townhomes are surface parked, and have no elevators or fire suppression systems, yet they achieve a density of 40 units per acre.
 
The project stands as a testament to the lasting value of long-forgotten and now recently-remembered missing middle housing types.