Some $44 million in tax credit-financed affordable housing scurries toward construction

After more than a year's worth of City Hall work, the City Council last night cleared the way for three apartment projects that will cost $44 million to build and will create 231 units of affordable housing to replace some of what was lost in the June 2008 flood.

The projects are:

---  the 96-unit Oakhill Jackson Brickstones to be built by Hatch Development Group, Des Moines, on vacant land along Sixth Street SE.

---  the 90-unit Cedar Pond Townhomes to be built by on 11.2 acres south of Williams Boulevard and north of Wilson Avenue SW on a site that once was home to part of Chapman Fun World. EverGreen Real Estate Development, Prior Lake, Minn., is the developer.

--- the 45-unit Cedar View senior-living apartments to be built by MetroPlains LLC, St. Paul, Minn., on a 2.5-acre site at 1100 O Ave. NW.

Cedar Pond and Cedar View both generated strong opposition from neighbors, but, nonetheless, both made it through the city's regulatory process.

Most of the funding for the three projects will come from federal affordable-housing tax credits which are designed to bring quality housing with affordable rents to communities across the nation. Investors provide money upfront to the projects in return for credit against tax liabilities over 10 years. Each of these three projects also got additional federal funding to help complete the financing in a down economy in which investors were not willing to front as much money to projects as in the past.

Ben Henderson, who sat on the city's Replacement Housing Task Force during its one-year existence from September 2008 through August 2009, told the City Council last night that each of the three projects was a “quality” one and that each developer had displayed “persistence” in bringing the project to reality.

All three developers were up against end-of-the-year financing deadlines to get their projects moving, and that's why all three were in front of the council last night for a variety of necessary city actions to clear the way for construction, City Manager Jim Prosser reported.

Michael Richards, the president of the Oakhill Jackson Neighborhood Association and a board member of both the New Bohemia district and the Southside Investment Board, expressed “enthusiastic support” for the Hatch Development Group's project in his neighborhood. He said the housing was “still very much needed.”

Allen Witt, an engineer with Hall & Hall Engineers who is working on the Oakhill Jackson Brickstones project, called the construction of the three projects “a pinnacle moment” for affordable “work force” housing in the city.

Henderson said the developers will spend $43.6 million to build the three projects. The Brickstones will cost $19.5 million; Cedar Pond, $15.5 million; and Cedar View, $8.6 million, he said.