"Roughly ten years after Lexington Housing Authority Executive Director Austin Simms and others began envisioning a revitalized East End neighborhood, the pieces have started to come together.
This month, the housing authority opened 24 new rental townhomes, at a cost of $3.4 million, on the site of the former Bluegrass-Aspendale housing complex, which was razed last year to make way for a community redevelopment funded through a $20 million Hope VI federal grant. The agency also finalized a $7 million contract with R.A. Williams Construction to build the next 60 apartment units on the site.
All in all, the redevelopment plan for the 80-acre site calls for building back 260 units of affordable housing for rent, including townhouses, apartments and duplexes, along with a subdivision of 103 single-family homes for ownership, and numerous additional improvements to be built over the next five years.
These aren't the cookie-cutter, barracks-style living quarters that most people associate with public housing. In developing the latest townhome units, which feature one to four bedrooms, the housing authority took its lead from the private sector, Simms said, adding features such as oval accent windows, concrete-imprinted crosswalks that imitate brick, curved walkways, varied landscaping and ceramic kitchen tile.
"It's exciting," Simms said. "A lot of activity is going on. I think this community, if they drive by, can sense that all the talk of Hope VI and the buzz of transformation is, in fact, actually taking place, as well as the dollars being spent in that depressed neighborhood."
And the changes in the East End don't stop with the new rental units. Work has also begun to prepare an 18-acre site for the area's new community school, with an official groundbreaking scheduled for May 12. A tree-lined boulevard is taking shape and will eventually link the geographically detached community to Midland Avenue, a move which many hope will open it up as part of the emerging downtown revival.
"You begin to realize that we weren't that far from Main Street," Simms said. "In the past, you couldn't see us. When you are hidden and not seen, you are sometimes forgotten. Now that we're going to have this open area with lots of activity coming and going, I think we can do nothing but benefit from that."
In addition, Habitat for Humanity has committed to build roughly two dozen homes in the East End community over the next four years on sites to be provided by LFUCG. Community Ventures Corporation (CVC), which is currently operating its business incubator, 3rd Street Exchange, on the nearby corner of Third and Midland at near capacity, is also investigating the Third Street corridor for retail and small business investment opportunities.
Because of the area's close proximity to downtown and the revitalization already underway, the CVC is exploring a variety of business uses, said Bill Stanley, who handles communication and marketing for the CVC.
"There's a lot of great growth potential and good citizens there," Stanley said. "And were not talking about scraping it away and putting in high-rises; we look at it as an opportunity for small business."
"It really is an important development for the downtown area and the East End corridor, that whole part of Lexington that is on the cusp of being improved," said Harry Richart, president of National City in Lexington. "We owe the housing authority and Austin Simms a real debt of thanks for the hard work that he and his staff and the LFUCG have put into trying to make this happen. It's been a long time coming, but it's really going to be a good project."
Through Ohio Capital, the syndicator of the $634,000 in low-income housing tax credits for the upcoming 60-unit phase, six local banks are considering proposals to become a secondary set of equity investors in the project, said Richart, who helped organize the local interest along with Central Bank President Luther Deaton.
"As downtown partners, the banks just want to be part of that," Richart said. "There are other things we can do, but being equity investors is a good start."
Through a joint initiative of the housing authority, the CVC and the Mayor's Training Center, in cooperation with project contractors such as R.A. Williams, both former and current residents of the area may also be able to use the redevelopment project as an opportunity to jumpstart their own enterprises. Ideally, with proper business planning and skill training, the program would make small bids for work, such as installing closet fixtures or doorknobs, available to people from the area who are looking for a first-time project or small business opportunity.
"It's something that I think is workable," said Arnold Gaither, executive director of the Mayor's Training Center. "Obviously it can only be a wonderful idea if all partners follow through on their commitments."
The goal, according to Ron Osborne, president of the contractor R.A. Williams Construction, is not only to have local residents working at the former Bluegrass-Aspendale site, but to train them as potential subcontractors and employees for future jobs as well.
"They've been really good about working with us on what we have available, and it is a work in progress as we go forward," Osborne said.
Although Mayor Newberry's recent budget proposal would eliminate the Mayor's Training Center at the end of this fiscal year on June 30, the Hope VI job placement initiative will continue through LFUCG.
With various high-end developments having popped up in the downtown area in recent years, some have raised concerns about whether such investments will leave room for more affordable housing options. Simms sees the many improvements currently underway for residential housing across income levels as mutually beneficial.
"You start getting more mixed income neighborhoods where everybody benefits from the services and benefits from the diversity of the income ranges," Simms said. "So from my perspective, it's not hurting us — it's helping us."
Meet the contractor
As the contractor for phase 3 of the redevelopment of the Bluegrass-Aspendale Housing Complex, R.A. Williams Construction will add 60 new units to the project in the next year, with an anticipated completion date of April 21, 2008.
The Lexington-based company has handled many previous projects for the Lexington Housing Authority, including a 100-unit scattered site project at four different locations around town and a 99-unit renovation on Bainbridge Street, in addition to the 24 recently completed townhouse units at the Bluegrass-Aspendale site.
Founded in 1972, R.A. Williams was initially focused on Kentucky's affordable housing market. The Lexington-based company, which has 25 employees, branched out in 1989 to take on other commercial developments, including projects for schools, hotels, banks, churches and horse farms, but it is still heavily involved in affordable housing construction across the state. Recent Lexington clients of the company have included Branch Bank and Trust, Crossroads Christian Church and Bracktown Baptist Church.
Located on Prosperous Place, R.A. Williams owns more than 50 apartment complexes throughout Central and southeastern Kentucky that the company has developed and constructed under the low-income housing program, or its previous incarnations.
"We kind of have a unique perspective from being the owner of units," said Ron Osborne, president of R.A. Williams. "Things that promote high curb appeal and maintenance-free environments we can see from our own developments. We try to bring those things forward with us on new developments."
Over the years, the company has seen many rising challenges in the development of affordable housing, including the availability of funding, increasing compliance standards and the rising level of market expectations.
"Affordable housing has changed industry-wide from what folks used to refer to as the projects," Osborne said. "It's more now about a certain type of housing that fits into the community, that is almost indistinguishable from other units in the community."
Osborne said he sees the Lexington Housing Authority has been a leader in this regard."They are really progressive in their approach to the rental housing they do, trying to make it appear like any conventional development with a lot of the architectural details and attention to aesthetics," Osborne said.
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