The Minnesota Department of Transportation held the parcels until they were acquired by the city of Minneapolis, which has since struck a redevelopment agreement for the site with nonprofit housing developers Plymouth Church Neighborhood Foundation and CommonBond Communities.
The plans call for a four-story, 42-unit apartment complex for very low-income seniors, including the frail elderly. The new building will be less than three blocks from the VA Medical Center Station along the Hiawatha light-rail line.
The Plymouth Church foundation, working on behalf of Minnehaha United Methodist Church and the Nokomis Lutheran Church, started scouring the neighborhood six years ago in hopes of finding suitable property on which to provide affordable housing for the area's low-income seniors, said Matt Crellin, the foundation's director of housing development.
"We did some research and found that MnDOT was going to declare the site as surplus land," he said. "We started talking to the city about it and realized it was a good fit for subsidized housing. The idea was, if not there, then where?"
The project will be mainly funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 202 program, which provides capital advances to finance the construction of new housing for the very low-income elderly, as well as rent subsidies to keep them affordable.
Other funding sources include Minneapolis, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines and the congregations of the two local churches.
