A St. Louis-based developer and its local partners have announced plans to build 201 mixed-income apartments within Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse’s American Locomotive Works complex in the Valley section of Providence.
McCormack Baron Salazar is partnering with Struever Bros. and the nonprofit Olneyville Housing Corporation and Smith Hill Community Development Corporation to develop 126 affordable housing units in a five-story, 211,000-square-foot building, with the apartments located above retail space and a garage.
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The complex, to be called The Flats at Iron Horse Way, with a two-floor garage and an additional 8,000-square-foot retail space along Valley Street, will sit on a 2-acre parcel. The retail section, with fewer than 10 storefronts, is intended to help merge the ALCO development with the surrounding community, said Eric Busch, site manager for Struever Bros.
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, said Karl Schlachter, senior vice president of McCormack Baron Salazar. The affordable-housing units will be leased for $675 to $900 a month.
Schlachter said the affordable apartments will be indistinguishable from market-rate units.
“I think it will be comparable to some of the mills down the street, but the rent is going to be incredible,” said Schlachter. “It’ll be an incredible place to live.”
Francis Smith, executive director of Smith Hill CDC, said his nonprofit manages $87 million worth of affordable housing units, but it can’t keep up with the demand.
“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,” he said. “And – as we all know – income levels have not kept pace.”
Olneyville Housing has more than 700 families waiting for 65 currently occupied apartments, and executive director Frank Shea said mixed-income developments will likely become an important source of new units. This project, he said, will make “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.
“We’re attempting to do this project without tapping into some of the most hard-sought subsidy dollars,” Shea 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.”
The $333 million ALCO project, started by Streuver last year, is the largest real estate project in the city since the Providence Place mall was constructed in 1999. •
