Central Community Housing Trust: Affordable housing for 'burbs
Star Tribune
October 3, 2005
By Susan Feyder
As the nonprofit Central Community Housing Trust looks to a future of developing affordable housing beyond its core in Minneapolis, the organization's track record continues to bring it national recognition.
One day after the CCHT broke ground on its first project in St. Paul, its president, Alan Arthur, was in Washington, D.C., to be honored by the Local Initiatives Support Corp., the nation's leading community development organization. Arthur, who has been with CCHT since 1988, was one of 25 community development directors nationwide to receive the Mike Sviridoff Leadership Award, named after the national organization's first president.
Paul Williams, who heads the Local Initiatives Twin Cities office, said that much of CCHT'S success is a result of Arthur's "perseverance and longevity" in the local community development field. Under his leadership, CCHT, which owns and manages 24 properties, has built almost 1,300 homes and provided housing options for about 2,000 low- and moderate-income residents.
"He's a big part of the reason CCHT has been on the leading edge when it comes to providing alternatives in affordable housing," Williams said.
Williams cites East Village, a $29.5 million development completed in 2001, as an example of Arthur's innovative approach to community development. The project brought the first market-rate housing in more than 70 years to the Elliot Park neighborhood at the edge of downtown Minneapolis. as well as affordable housing and retail development.
Other more recent projects include the St. Barnabas Apartments, which opened last spring and offers efficiency apartments for low-income adults and homeless young people. The nearly 100-year-old building, originally an addition to the former St. Barnabas Hospital, also houses YouthLink, a youth support services organization.
For its first St. Paul project, CCHT will renovate the Crane Ordway warehouse in historic Lowertown. The development, which will create 70 housing units, is expected to be completed next summer, Arthur said.
The organization isn't limiting itself to inner cities, however. Construction is set to begin next year on CCHT's first suburban development in Chaska. The project will combine 12,000 square feet of commercial space with 115 apartments.
Arthur said CCHT's expansion to the suburbs results from two emerging market realities: a growing need for affordable housing there and competition for properties downtown that is coming from developers of higher-priced condominiums.
"Lower-income people have to live somewhere," Arthur said.
Increasing numbers of lower- and moderate-income people are finding work in the suburbs and want to live closer to their jobs, he said. The Chaska development, in fact, is being supported in part by two employers -- Lake Region Manufacturing and Ridgeview Medical Center.
| 