St. Luke’s Has $16M Vision

St. Luke’s Steel Band would love to be able to perform on a landscaped terrace in front of a permanent home on Whalley Avenue. It just may happen if an ambitious plan to transform property adjacent and behind the church into a mixed use residential and senior housing comes to pass.

Band director Debbie Teason along with members of the St. Luke’s Development Corporation (SLDC) and community partners met to review architect Paul Bailey’s renderings of how 115, 125, and 129 Whalley Ave. might be re-onfigured into a four-story brick building with terraces and a metal roof, along with three 3,000-square foot retail spaces facing Whalley Avenue.

The historic African-American Episcopal church at Sperry currently owns that land and the ramshackle buildings to the east in which Elaine’s Healthy Choices, Papa Johns, and a car rental business now operate.

In the back recessed spaces, on concrete floors with sometimes less than robust heat, the St. Luke’s Steel Band and Music Haven also rehearse and rent space at subsidized rates. .

“We’d like to see a permanent home for them [here],” said Sam Andoh, chairman of the SLDC (left in photo with Music Haven’s Colin Benn)

“We want to be a catalyst for wholesome development,” said Andoh. The project has been gestating for about ten years. It follows on the 18-unit Josephine Gray Senior Housing complex that the SLDC successfully built five years ago nearby on Goffe.

This time, that wholesome development involves both the 39 units of non-age restricted housing and stores on Whalley as well as another senior complex.

The preliminary plan calls for the 18 units of new senior housing along with a parking lot to be constructed on property immediately behind the church toward Dickerman Street. 

However, the church does not own the property surrounding it on Sperry and Dickerman. The proposal calls for purchase of those lots, which along with construction and other costs, would add up to a total projected cost of $16 million.

Dave Berto, who is consulting with the SLDC on the financial feasibility, called the $16 million figure a preliminary rough estimate.

With projected rents envisioned supporting a bank mortgage of $3 million , the developers would need to find another $13 million. They’re looking for $4 million in city grants and $7 million from the state, among other sources.

Much of the discussion at a press event about the project Saturday centered around whether that money can be found in these strapped economic times.

“If there is a will in this room, it will happen,” predicted Yale Law School professor Bob Solomon, who serves as volunteer lawyer for the church;

Berto said the team would like to begin construction in 2012 and cut the ribbon in 2013.

In the meantime over at a rehearsal, band director Debbie Teason was overheard noting to her steel drum players that the concrete floor might remain a little cool. She advised continuing to wear warm socks for some time to come.