PROVIDENCE – A St. Louis-based developer and its local nonprofit partners today announced plans to build 201 mixed-income apartments above a retail center and garage within the American Locomotive Works redevelopment.
Developers McCormack Baron Salazar – partnering with Olneyville Housing Corporation and Smith Hill Community Development Corporation and ALCO lead developers Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc. of Baltimore – said it plans to create 126 affordable and 75 other housing units in a five-story, 211,000-square-foot building. The complex, to include a two-story garage and an additional 8,000-square-foot retail space along Valley Street, will sit on a 2-acre parcel.
“Although we are presently seeing a slight decline in our real estate value, during the past five years real estate value and housing costs have gone up over 60 percent in Smith Hill,” said Francis Smith, executive director of the Smith Hill CDC. “And – as we all know – income levels have not kept pace.”
Proposed for the $40 million development are 120 one-bedroom units, 68 two-bedroom units and 13 three-bedroom units – ranging from 750 square feet to 1,200 square feet – Karl Schlachter, senior vice president of McCormack Baron Salazar, said at the 1 p.m. news conference. The affordable-housing units will rent for between $675 and $900 a month.
The project would exceed the 102 units of affordable housing were created city-wide in 2006, according to HousingWorks RI, and “would foster the site’s rebirth as an integral part of the Valley and Smith Hill neighborhoods,” McCormack Baron Salazar, OHC and the SHCDC said in a joint statement.
“There’s a huge need for affordable housing,” said Frank Shea, director of OHC, who was among the speakers at today’s event. “First and foremost, it’s 126 units of affordable housing that will be available to working families in this neighborhood. It’s just huge. That’s a tremendous contribution.”
In addition, he said, working with a national developer – McCormack Baron Salazar has completed 122 housing projects totaling $1.7 billion – is a way to reduce an affordable-housing development’s dependence on municipal tax credits. For this reason, partnerships between nonprofits, developers and public bodies are increasingly practical for large-scale affordable-housing developments, Shea said.
“We’re attempting to do this project without tapping into some of the most hard-sought subsidy dollars,” he said. “The 9-percent tax credits are the main federal production vehicle used by affordable-housing developers, and they’re administered on a per-capita basis – so they’re very scarce.”
Developer Stuever Bros. Eccles & Rouse began the $333 million ALCO redevelopment project during 2006. Last month, the project entered its second phase.
The complex under redevelopment includes 26 former mills that had housed manufacturers including the former U.S. Rubber Co., American Locomotive Works and Nicholson File Co. The mixed-use development – the largest investment in Providence since the Providence Place mall was constructed in 1999 – already includes occupied office space.
