Groundbreaking for a new $11 million apartment complex west of the CSA Fodrea campus marks a significant milestone in the availability of affordable housing, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop said.
Construction on the 60-unit, three-story Gladstone Apartments, 411 S. Gladstone Ave., should be completed in roughly a year, developer Ronda Weybright said.
The owner and president of RealAmerica Companies of Fishers, Weybright told more than 30 people who attended Wednesday’s groundbreaking that the Gladstone Apartments will consist of:
12 one-bedroom units
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36 two-bedroom units
12 three-bedroom units
The 66,674 square foot complex will include two residential buildings containing energy-efficient units with washers and dryers, as well as a clubhouse, Weybright said.
But from the city’s perspective, one of the most important features is that this complex will provide workforce housing for some of the more than 10,000 commuters who live outside Columbus because they can’t afford to pay the local rental property rates, Lienhoop said.
“Workforce housing is high in demand and short in supply,” Lienhoop told the crowd. “This is an effort to help rectify the supply part.”
Lienhoop assured those in attendance that the city plans to continue to develop more workforce housing in the future.
Searching for affordability
Rents at the Gladstone Apartments will be income-averaged, which means they will be individually adjusted based on wages and family size, Weybright said.
More precisely, these apartments will be reserved for those who earn between 50% to 80% of Bartholomew County’s median household income, she said.
For example, the median income for a local family of three in Bartholomew County is $65,000. But rents and utilities at the Gladstone Apartments will be lowered to make them affordable for the same size family earning between $32,000 (50%) and $52,000 (80%) annually, said Programs Coordinator Robin Hilber of the city’s community development office.
In Indiana, affordable housing is defined as a combination of rent or mortgage payment that does not exceed 30% of a renter’s income.
There will be a multitude of services provided at the complex based on what renters request, as well as what the state requires in exchange for their financial assistance, Weybright said.
Links to health care, education, infrastructure and transportation are part of what the state is requesting, said Jacob Sipe, executive director of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority.
“These apartments have to be affordable — they have to be quality — they have to fit in the market, and be close to grocery stores and other amenities,” Sipe told the groundbreaking audience.
In addition, RealAmerica is already making contacts with companies and social service providers who can help link tenants with better paying jobs, Weybright said.
Financing the project
Gladstone Apartments will be financed through federal tax credits and private investors, Sipe said. Financial partners include the city of Columbus, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, Bostons Capitol, JP Morgan and Merchants Capital.
This project is using Section 42 low-income tax credits that are specifically designed to attract private investment, Sipe said.
Following the groundbreaking, Lienhoop said the supply of available federal tax credits is so limited that the city was unable to obtain them for about five affordable housing projects in recent years.
After explaining that these tax credits are awarded on a point system, the mayor said nearly all of the five projects fell short of receiving them by only half-a-point to one point.
If more of these credits were made available, additional low-income housing projects with affordable rents could be constructed in Columbus, Lienhoop said. Sipe, as well as some housing financial experts at the groundbreaking, agreed.
Indiana Sen. Todd Young is among eight federal lawmakers who recently introduced bi-partisan legislation that includes a 50 percent increase in tax credits for housing that serves extremely low income populations or those with special needs, such as formerly homeless veterans.
Sponsors said their bill would result in 550,000 more units being built over the next decade than would be built without the legislation.
But Lienhoop said he doesn’t expect this bill to be given serious consideration until the next session of Congress.
State Street redevelopment
The Gladstone Apartments will be the latest investment to materialize as the result of $6 million in public funding used to renovate the State Street corridor, city Redevelopment Director Heather Pope said.
Just last May, groundbreaking was held for the four-story Vivera Senior Living of Columbus that is being built on the site of the former county annex building near State and Mapleton streets. Apartments in the 84,500-square-foot building will include 52 efficiency units and 62 one-bedroom units.
In addition, a service company that had been located on National Road, Salon 1750, moved to State Street just last year, Pope said.
Next door to the future site of the Gladstone Apartments is the 5-year-old Casey’s General Store. Across State Street from Casey’s is a fairly-new building with a convenience store and sandwich shop.
As more of these types of developments becomes visible, an expanding number of additional investments are likely to be made along the State Street corridor, city officials said.
Much of the city’s redevelopment has focused on the city’s southeast side because these neighborhoods have much of the necessary infrastructure — such as sewage and water service — already in place, Hilber said.
It is far more cost-efficient to redevelopment blighted areas along the State Street corridor than to expand the city’s boundaries, she said.
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Among Indiana housing developers, the 24-year-old Fishers-based RealAmerica is unique in that it is certified as a Women Business Enterprise (WBE).
Since females are considered a disadvantaged class in owning housing development companies, being WBE-certified has distinct financial advantages, according to RealAmerica president and owner Ronda Shrewsburg Weybright
Laws enacted over the past 45 years require government departments and agencies to ensure a certain percentage of their purchasing contracts go to women-owned businesses. In addition, hundreds of national corporations are diversifying their supplier base by doing business with women-owned companies.
While a number of male partners initially in 1995, Weybright said she eventually bought out those partners.
The original purpose of the development company was to develop and construct apartment housing through the use of low-income housing tax credits. Today, the company has close to 2,000 apartment units spread out over 30 developments in Indiana communities such as Nashville, Fort Wayne, Warsaw, Huntington and Gnaw Bone.
In recent years, RealAmerica has expanded into other real estate development including market rate apartments, self-storage, business office and mixed-use developments.
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