Photo courtesy of Heritage Housing
Representatives of developer Heritage Housing Inc. joined federal, state and local officials, representatives of PNC Bank and figures from CDFI Capital for Change Inc. to celebrate the launch of renovations on Hartford’s Barbour Gardens apartment complex.
The property at 383 Barbour St. was built in the 1960s, but “years of neglect and deterioration had pushed it toward desolation, culminating in the relocation of all residents from the buildings in 2019,” the Norwalk-based developer said in a statement.
With financing from a $20.9 million first mortgage and $13.9 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credits OK’d by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and purchased by PNC Bank, plus a $2.3 million predevelopment/acquisition loan from Wallingford-based Capital for Change that kept the property from going into foreclosure, Heritage Housing bought the property in 2019 along with four similar ones in the area. In total, the deal will preserve 206 affordable units in Hartford.
The firm is planning $10.54 million in renovations using the remainder of the financing, it said, and anticipates re-opening an extensively upgraded, 74-unit complex in early 2022, including 48 units offering Section 8 assistance and 26 units of additional affordable housing. The U.S. Department of HUD renewed four existing Section 8 contracts and – working with Heritage Housing and the city of Hartford – provided new Section 8 assistance to the Barbour Gardens property after terminating contracts with the prior owner over serious vermin problems and other deterioration.
The renovated complex will include a new community room and office, features that had been absent earlier, McCarthy said. Unit interiors will be entirely redone, including new plumbing, HVAC, fire protection, safety features, in-unit laundry connections, roofs and windows.
“Many developers would walk away from a challenging property like this,” David McCarthy, Heritage Housing’s founder and president, said in a statement. “But we live and work in Connecticut, too, and my view is that — if you work in the field of affordable housing and witness degradation as in Barbour Gardens — you should do something to help.”
Founded in 2017, Heritage Housing has worked to redevelop sites in Connecticut, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Vermont, and Michigan.
“A project such as this is core to our mission – to broaden access to affordable housing for underserved communities,” Carla Weil, director of commercial lending at Capital for Change, said in a statement. “The project is transformational for this neighborhood, with which we’re familiar because the site is close to others where we’ve also invested.”
Capital for Change Inc. was created in 2016 through the mergers of the Community Capital Fund, Connecticut Housing Investment Fund and the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund, shaping an organization with a statewide history of service stretching back to 1968.
