Nonprofit purchases Martindale building
After renovations, apartments could continue to serve homeless
Fifty units of low-income housing lost when the Martindale Apartments in Hillyard closed last spring are slated for revival after a Spokane nonprofit bought the structure at auction.
Northeast Washington Housing Solutions bought the foreclosed building, 5313 N. Regal St., late last month for $651,000. But it may take two or three years, and an estimated $11.8 million, to revamp the aging structure – if the organization can find the money.
“It’s good news, but it’s going to take a little while,” said Executive Director Steve Cervantes.
About 45 residents, many of them formerly homeless and with mental illnesses, were displaced in May when the building closed following financial problems.
The organization will apply for a variety of city and state money and tax credits for the rehabilitation, which would include on-site case management services, Cervantes said. Three-quarters of the units would be reserved for the homeless, he said.
“We want to be able to preserve something that’s existing, something that adds value to the neighborhood,” he said. “From the private sector, I don’t believe that anyone would go in willing to spend the kind of money the building needs to really upgrade it and preserve it.”
Built in 1912, the Martindale needs serious work, Cervantes said. Residents had said the single elevator was broken for more than a year prior to the Martindale’s closure. Although it had passed the housing organization’s inspections for federal housing voucher recipients to live there, Cervantes said, “it really was marginal.”
Low-income housing advocates praised the purchase.
“It’s going to take time but I know it will be done right, so that’s a reassuring issue,” said Bob Peeler, senior family development specialist for Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs.
“I was fearful when it went into foreclosure that a for-profit would take it and convert it into fair-market rents, which would make it unable for our folks to live there,” he said. The purchase by Housing Solutions means “they will make the appropriate investments into the property, and it will be clean, safe and affordable.”
All but one or two residents relocated, Peeler said. Joining hundreds of poor renters displaced from three other buildings in recent months, they “pretty much scattered throughout the area.”
“It’s certainly a challenge or a bold move on their part,” given that funding is not lined up, said Mike Adolfae, director of community development for the city. “It’s an interesting approach.”
Housing Solutions was the only bidder besides the previous owner, who started bidding at $650,000, Cervantes said.
Spokane County could have been responsible for repaying $500,000 in federal money it used to help acquire and renovate the building unless it was used for affordable purposes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has said. It is unclear if the plans by Housing Solutions satisfy that obligation. A county representative could not be reached for comment.
The organization also hopes to break ground this fall on the estimated $8.21 million rehabilitation of the 35-unit Helena Apartments, renamed the Pearl Apartments, at 1226 W. Second Ave. Those units are adjacent to Cornerstone Courtyard, a warehouse that Housing Solutions converted into 50 affordable units that opened earlier this year.
Peeler hopes some displaced tenants will return to the Martindale. “It would be good to have them come back. It would be kind of full-cycle.”