Jersey Park Apartments isn’t the only affordable housing complex in Smithfield slated to receive a facelift.

Salisbury, Maryland-based Green Street Housing, which expects to close on the purchase of the 80-unit complex in March, will that same month acquire and, likely in 2026, renovate the adjacent 60-unit Woods Edge apartment complex.

Both are currently owned by subsidiaries of Rockville, Maryland-based T.M. Associates.

Chase Powell, director of development for Green Street, told the Smithfield Town Council at its Aug. 26 committee meetings that his company expects to assume ownership and management of both complexes in March and begin work at Jersey Park that same month. He expects the renovations will take 12 months to 15 months.

The work will include replacing the roofs on the 10 two-story apartment buildings, replacing their siding and windows, repaving the parking lot, adding an outdoor recreation area, and putting fresh paint, new flooring, new heating and air-conditioning and new appliances and finishes inside each apartment. Tenants will be relocated to vacant units while theirs are being renovated.

Once the work at Jersey Park is complete, Green Street will begin the same renovations at Woods Edge.

“We really want to rebrand and revitalize both communities,” Powell said.

While the two apartment complexes share access to West Main Street from Wrenn Road, they are technically separate communities. Jersey Park, according to Powell, was built in 1978 with financing through a housing assistance payment contract, also known as Section 8, which provides housing choice vouchers to qualified low-income tenants through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Advertisements in The Smithfield Times’ archives show the complex began soliciting its first tenants for one- and two-bedroom units in 1981.

Woods Edge, he said, was built in 1986 with subsidies through an affordable housing program overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to build housing in rural areas, originally intended for farm laborers. Woods Edge includes two- and three-bedroom units.

The reason Green Street is starting with Jersey Park is because that first phase is fully funded, Powell said.

The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development last month awarded a $2.3 million Affordable and Special Needs Housing grant to Green Street for Jersey Park. That grant will be combined with municipal bonds issued by the state as well as the federal low-income housing tax credit program.

“Most of the affordable housing in this country is financed by what is called the low-income housing tax credit and what that is is a dollar-for-dollar exchange of a federal tax credit in exchange for an equity investment,” Powell said. “So how that works is that we partner with a syndicator who either creates a fund or finds an individual investor to make an investment into the property and then they make their return through earning tax credits over a 10-year period.”

A syndicator is typically a bank, insurance company, pension company or other financial institution, he said.

Green Street, according to Powell, expects to spend $8.4 million, or $105,000 per unit, at Jersey Park alone. Financing isn’t yet fully committed for the renovations at Woods Edge.

“It will look like a new community; it’s not going to look like it does now,” Powell said.

A single management company, Gateway Management Services LLC, will oversee day-to-day operations at Jersey Park and Woods Edge starting in March. Green Street has also retained Communities Together Inc., a tenant services provider, which Powell said would provide social services referrals, arrange homeownership counseling and financial literacy courses, and partner with community organizations to ensure food access and programming for children.

“The other thing we’re going to do is beef up security,” Powell said.

Jersey Park saw multiple shootings last year, including two fatalities.

Green Street, he said, is looking into access control for all common spaces, an enhanced camera system and better lighting in the parking lot.