Allan Appel Photo
Tenants Doward, Walkeer, and Judson at Robert T. Wolfe.
If a vote by the housing authority swaps the federal government, Doris Doward, Jeffrey Walker, and Gail Hudson may see nicer apartments, more washing machines, and more parking at their 93-unit senior public-housing tower across from the train station.
The three are long-time tenants of the Robert T. Wolfe Apartments, cheek by jowl with the Church Street South development and across from Union Station.
At a special meeting Tuesday evening, the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) Board of Commissioners voted unaninomusly to resubmit an application for a $30 million federal grant to rebuild the soon-to-be-demolished federally subsidized 301-unit Church Street South complex. The first application failed to win approval from the feds last year.
But this time HANH’s $30 million request includes $6 million to rebuild the Robert T. Wolfe as well.
The Choice grant would primarily support the plan for a $405 million reconstruction of Church Street South as a 1,000-unit mixed-use complex, with 300 of the apartments remaining “affordable.” The city is undertaking that project in conjunction with the complex’s Massachusetts-based owner, Northland Investment Corporation.
With the new application, New Haven hopes to earn additional points in the scoring by including the Robert T. Wolfe complex along with an unnamed off-site location, possibly around the corner in Trowbridge Square, said Shenae Draughn, the senior vice president of the Glendower Group, the development and property management arm of HANH.
Like the previous application, this one also calls for using the money to improve infrastructure, enhance existing homeownership and other resident-focussed social service programs, and provide job training and startup business opportunities for those who previously lived at Church Street South, and now Robert T. Wolfe Apartments. The pitch is for rebuilding a broader neighborhood, not just one site.
The application is due to be filed Nov. 22, which is in part why a special meeting of the HANH commissioners was called.
HANH wholly owns the Wolfe complex as opposed to the Church Street South buildings, owned by Northland, with which the city has decided to work on the new development. HUD has subsidized the rents at Church Street South through the Section 8 program.
HANH and Northland will create one seamless 1,000-unit development over the adjacent sites that includes the Wolfe complex so that design-wise and architecturally, the two will appear to be one, Draughn said.
In the rebuild of Wolfe, efficiency apartments would disappear in favor of one- and two-bedrooms. Efficiencies were prevalent in affordable housing construction in the 1970s.
Tenants at the HANH meeting said they like living at Robert T. Wolfe and would want to move back in after the demolition and reconstruction of the building under a Choice grant.
“I like the area,” said Doward, who has lived there since 2001/ Hudson has been a Wolfe resident since 2009.Walker for 27 years.
HANH Takes A Step To Own The Residencies at Ninth Square
Ninth Square looking south on Orange Street.
The commissioners Tuesday also voted unanimously to enter into a partnership with the Hamden-based Belfonti Companies to submit an application to the Connecticut Housing Financing Authority (CHFA) to become a 50 – 50 co-owner of the Residences at Ninth Square.
Those are the 335 rental units in several buildings, which also comprise 50,000 square feet of commercial spaces and two parking garages distributed along Orange Street from Center to George.
Developers McCormack and Baron and the Related Companies, which built the Ninth Square properties in the 1990s and succeeded in transforming the area into a vibrant mixed-income neighborhood, were unable to refinance to satisfy CHFA and the other major debtor, the City of New Haven. So CHFAhas issued a call for qualified purchasers, to which HANH and Belfonti are responding.
The proposal approved by the commissioners authorizes $1.5 million to be set aside as a good faith deposit from HANH should the application be successful.
In a short discussion following the presentation of the proposal by HANH Senior Director of Strategy, Policy & Innovation Erik Johnson, Commissioner William Kilpatrick asked about the relationship between HANH and Belfonti.
“We’d be equal partners,” Johnson replied.
Given that the apartments are full in the area, why have the developers failed? Kilpatrick asked.
Johnson declined to reveal details of the deal he has structured. Instead, he answered this way: “X is income. Y is debt. Y is more than X.”
“What will we do differently?” Kilpatrick went on.
“We’ll restructure the debt,” Johnson said.
Commissioner Matthew Short, who is in the real estate business and attended the meeting via speakerphone, endorsed the proposal. “I’ve talked with Erik Johnson several times. I like the concept,” he said.
In a brief interview after the vote, Johnson noted that currently 199 of the 335 units in the development are currently “affordable” units but receive no subsidy.
“We’re contemplating adding operational subsidy,” he said.
Should HANH prevail in the application, the re-do would maintain the number of affordable units and upgrade all apartments with new windows, roofs, toilets, and insulation. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $30 million.
This application was also due to be filed by the end of the day Tuesday, just 30 minutes after the commissoners’ approval. For more detail on CHFA’s hunt for a buyer, click on Mary O’Leary’s recent article in the New Haven Register.