District at Midtown developers purchase 3 Regions buildings, new living spaces

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - It was announced Monday three Hattiesburg Regions locations will consolidate into one large facility in Lamar county.

District at Midtown developers worked with Regions the last year and purchased all three of its buildings to turn into living spaces.

Developer Rob Tatum said, "They reached out to us to see if we would be interested in buying their buildings down here.”

Tatum's company bough the Kress, Forrest Tower, and Branch buildings and will turn them into studios and one bedroom apartments. "For the next couple years they will still lease them back from us as we develop our plans for our final plans for the buildings" said Tatum.

This is not the Tatum's first living space project. The company currently has 52 units in the Carter and American building downtown.

According to Regions it plans to move all of its workers by 2019. Tatum said that is when he will begin the construction to add 100 new units downtown. "We will be able to add some new amenity spaces to our residents, just overall bring some more residents to the downtown" he added.

Tatum hopes that adding living spaces will attract business owners and residents to help revitalize the downtown area. “Overall just bring more residents to downtown" said Tatum. He added, "We have been very successful with our apartments here."

"Retail, we are working hard to keep that going, additional restaurants that opened downtown has been a great add, we hope to see that momentum going.”

The units will be ready by 2020 according to Tatum.