LEWISTON — A proposed Lisbon Street housing development will shift to include more multiple-bedroom units and more market-rate apartments to match new Maine Housing Authority guidelines.
The Szanton Co. will bring its downtown retail and housing development back to the City Council for a new vote June 21.
Company owner Nathan Szanton presented an updated plan based on new MaineHousing funding guidelines to councilors at a workshop Tuesday night.
“The whole rubric has changed so much we didn’t know what to expect from MaineHousing,” Szanton said. “We don’t know what score we’d have to get to be successful.”
Szanton and his company want to develop the seven empty lots on the west side of Lisbon Street between Pine and Ash streets. The plan is to build a five-story apartment building with 63 units, a mix of publicly supported affordable units and apartments with market-rate rents.
He plans to leave space on the street level for retail or restaurant space.
“The entire street level on Lisbon Street, 160 feet, would be retail space,” he said. “It would be whatever configuration we need to attract retailers, whether it’s several small ones or one big one.”
It would replace a row of buildings taken out by fires in 2006. The lots, between the Professional Building at 145 Lisbon St., and Centreville Plaza at 179 Lisbon St., have been vacant since then.
Councilors approved his plan in April.
The project financing relies on winning affordable housing tax credits from MaineHousing in a competitive process, and Szanton said his group hope to apply for those credits in October.
MaineHousing released new guidelines in May for projects like Szanton’s that are hoping to get the tax credits.
“MaineHousing really threw us a curve ball when they changed the Qualified Allocation Plan, which is basically the rule book for how they allocate their housing tax credits,” Szanton said. “A number of things changed.”
The project initially called for 71 single-bedroom units. The new guidelines give greater weight to family units, so the project now calls for a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. The project would have 63 units in total, 33 single-bedroom units, 20 two-bedroom units and 10 three-bedroom units.
It would also have more market-rate units. The original plan called for 15 units with unrestricted market-rate rents. The current plan calls for 22 market-rate units and 21 units with affordable rents for lower-income tenants.
Szanton said it also changes the economics of the deal. He was prepared to pay $152,140 for the city’s five lots. To make financial sense, he can’t pay more than $135,000 now. The property is assessed at $129,000 by the city.
The original plan called for a 15-year Tax Increment Financing District on the properties that would return half of the new property taxes from the development to his company. The new plan would increase the TIF to 20 years, Szanton said.
Councilors should see the proposed TIF district in June. The city would allocate $325,000 of federal HOME funds for the project.
Councilor Michael Lachance voted against the project in April and he said the changes only make the project worse.
“Government enabling of this project is something I will continue to oppose,” Lachance said. “I agree that you have moved in the right direction with the market-rate housing and I think it looks good. But it’s the back end of this that I have sincere issues with.”
But Councilors Kristen Cloutier and Isobel Golden had good things to say.
“Even though some of the changes were challenging to rework, I think you’ve moved up in a couple of positive directions,” Golden said. “The increase in the market-rate units as well as having more family units means there will be economic activity downtown.”
Szanton said the project would go to the Maine Housing Authority in October, if councilors approve. They would find out if they are successful in December and would plan to begin work in June 2017, if they get funding. The building would be finished by the summer of 2018, he said.
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