Affordable Housing Institute : US

Sometimes it works.

 

Sometimes the things we hope to do, and plan to do, actually get done.

 

If you wanted to rehab this –

 

 

– into this –

 

 

– how would you go about doing it?

 

Well, yes, you’d need that too

 

Aside from a big pile of money, your biggest obstacle to the redevelopment is that there is already a property on the site, which no matter how rickety or leaky, is still home to families and children.  Never mind that it’s badly built, and leaks like a sieve.  You can’t just wish it out of existence.  What then do you do?

 

It would look worse without the snow covering up the soggy grounds

 

As I posted six months ago, some properties need to go somewhere to die:

 

Henry Hudson’s redevelopment is an example of what I’ve dubbed ’subsidy portage’, where the current physical property is demolished and rebuilt, and the residents, subsidies, mortgage, and regulatory agreements all migrate from the old physical buildings to the new ones.

 

The complex is owned by Hudson Ave. Housing Associates LLC, a partnership made up of Preservation Management Inc., Evergreen Partners and Marathon Development.

The existing buildings, which were built in the early 1970s, are in poor shape and are not energy-efficient, said [property manager Kelsey] Smith.

 

Remarkably, some properties are worth negative value — the land would be more valuable if they were torn down.  This particular property was a maze of Texture-111 siding, flimsy stick-built construction, and sloping roofs that invited water in to every crevice.

“They’re just old, and they really have to come down,” she said.

 

That became the plan: demolish and rebuild, and demolition started last September.

 

 

Today, after a very snowy winter, the first phase of rebuilt homes is coming on line, as reported in the

Glens Falls Post-Star:

 

New housing excites incoming tenants

 

Zachary Lane wheels some family possessions up to the family’s new home as his mother Shanda moves out of the way on their moving day at the Village Green Apartments on Monday.

 

Shanda Lane was animated as she spoke about how nice it was going to be to have shower faucets that turned on and off easily and a toilet that didn’t leak.

 

Sometimes we forget how much people will silently endure, and how much joy simple things can bring.

She was even more excited about another feature of the family’s new Village Green apartment.

“And check this out — we actually have a doorbell!” she said, as she reached outside the front door and rang the bell.

 

To accommodate demolition and rebuilding without displacing residents for long intervals, the developer (my former colleague, Charlie Allen) used a rolling rehab:

 

So the challenge became how to do a ‘rolling rehab,’ demolishing and rebuilding some of the buildings in phases, and moving residents around from old to new.

Building 44 is scheduled to come down next week [September, 2007 – Ed.], followed by buildings 21 and 25.  Residents of buildings being demolished have been moved into vacant apartments at the complex, Smith said.  Construction of the building that will replace Building 40 is tentatively scheduled to begin on Aug. 27, Smith said.

I’m also particularly happy because my for-profit company and I took on this problem four years ago.   When we were contacted by the investor limited partners, who were seeking some resolution of their risk, we realized that for the property to be viable, it needed to be comprehensively recapitalized, with very substantial new resources.  That, in turn, meant it would have to be sold, and to the right buyer — which, in turn, meant we had to preserve the status quo for several years.  But it got done, and the demolition is the first step.

 

The results are worth it:

 

No way that could have been recreated through rehab

Lane, her fiance Bill Kearney and their five children were among the first families to move into the new apartments, which are being built to replace the Henry Hudson Town Houses complex between Hudson Avenue and Broad Street.

Three families moved in on Monday, and another three will move in each day for about the next week, said Devon Briggs, the local property manager.

One of the most noticeable differences in the new apartment was its consistent heat, Lane said.

The townhouse where they lived for 11 years was drafty, she said.

 

What, you think that was drafty?

 

Old construction – pre-1974 Arab Oil Embargo – treated energy as virtually a free resource, and closed the cost-value gap through skimping on the physical construction.  The builders used single-pane windows (take a look), loose aluminum frames (unbelievable heat sink), low R-factor insulation, and that wafer-thin Texture-111 (T-111 as it was known) siding.

 

It was cheap up front, and horribly expensive over time:

Tenants not only will have more consistent heat, but they also can expect to pay less for utilities, because of the design of the new apartments and their new heating systems, said Kelsey Smith, a member of the management staff who is working on tenant relocation.

“It’s a long time coming. I think the new company is doing some really good things here,” [Ms. Lane’s fiancé Bill] Kearney said later Monday.

Hudson Avenue Housing Associates, a joint venture between Evergreen Partners and Marathon Development Group, bought the Henry Hudson Town House complex last spring.

 

From the sellers I represented.  Our clients had agreed to take a minimal price – basically, just enough to cover their exit taxes – and to allow any additional resources to be put into the property. 

 

More money spent on buying the property usually means less money available for construction

 

I’m proud of that group of clients.  Had they chosen their economic self-interests, they could have let the property limp along, as dilapidated and substandard housing, daring HUD to foreclose.  Fortunately, they didn’t – and our role in the transaction was to tell anybody and everybody that our clients would sell it if a certain minimal price was cleared … and then to wheedle my former colleague Charlie into taking it on.

Construction has progressed smoothly, other than occasional delays because of weather, according to Charles Allen, a principal in Evergreen Partners.

“The winter’s not doing us any favors. It’s made for extra work — no surprise,” he said on Monday.

Not to mention the dead bodies on the site, as Charlie emailed me during demolition and site prep:

 

Did I tell you about the dead bodies that we have on the site?  There are 12 of them and we are leaving them alone.  There had been an entire graveyard on one edge of the site.  It got moved in 1851.  That means a notice was put in the paper - “We are moving the graveyard.  Come get your friends and loved ones.”   

 

You scarecrows are gonna have to go …

 

That’s all in the past now:

Once the first round of moves into new apartments is completed, the next round will begin in June or July, when a three-story midrise building on the Hudson Avenue side of the complex is expected to be ready for occupancy, Allen said.

 

Buildings like these come down …

And buildings like these go up …

Some two-story apartment units along Hudson Avenue are expected to be ready around the same time.

The last of the townhouse units is expected to be demolished in July or August, with construction of the last of the new apartment units completed in the spring of 2009, Allen said.

 

You know it’s spring when the flowers bloom in your front yard.  You know a property’s a success when the elected officials bloom in your front yard.

 

Glens Falls Mayor Roy Akins said he is pleased the construction is proceeding smoothly.

He said one of his pledges when he ran for office was to make the town house complex a better place to live.

 

Gee, thanks, Mister Mayor.

 

 

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.  ~Harry S. Truman

 

A man who knew where the buck stopped

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