Palace

View

Apartments

Danbury,       Connecticut

Introduction

The Developer

The Residents

The Member

The Architect

The Numbers

Danbury

Introduction

Panoramic View of Palace View Apartments

Main entrance of Palace View Apartments.

When Robert Ausbury learned that a relative would soon be selling the Danbury, Connecticut, house where he was renting an apartment, the future suddenly seemed uncertain.

"I heard very hard stories about finding affordable housing in Danbury," says Robert. "Stories about people driving a long way and putting an awful lot of money into cars if they were working in Danbury or the surrounding areas."

But Robert had also been watching a new apartment complex being built in downtown Danbury and was curious to learn more about it. At first, he thought it was an upper-income development that he wouldn't be able to afford.

However, a friend told him it was a senior-housing complex, and he decided to take a closer look. He hadn't really considered moving into elderly housing, but the location and the high cost of rentals elsewhere made him reconsider his options.

Building Palace View
Built on the site of a former furniture store in Danbury's central business district, the 70-unit Palace View initiative was the brainchild of Mark Nolan, president of the Non Profit Rental Housing Corporation.

"Existing housing was available for very low-income seniors through the [Danbury] Housing Authority and some private elderly complexes in our community," says Mr. Nolan. "But we felt there wasn't a product for seniors who were priced out of very low-income developments and didn't meet the market-rate situation either."

While 18 units have been set aside for very low-income residents, most of the building's units are for residents earning no more than 60 percent of area median income. In addition to the apartments, the development also includes commercial development at the front of the building that is currently being leased by a medical facility.

To make Palace View a reality, the sponsor had to assemble a complex array of funding sources. "In this particular case, there were several partnerships that we brought together and entities that had to agree," says Mr. Nolan.

"The critical thing for us in working with the Non Profit Rental Housing Corporation was that it had experience developing this type of property," says John Kline, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Union Savings Bank. "It was very important to us to be working with someone who understood the ins and outs of Low Income Housing Tax Credits and the other alternative funding sources needed to pull together the project."

As in many affordable-housing initiatives, another critical piece of the financing puzzle was provided by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston's Affordable Housing Program (AHP). The Bank awarded Union Savings Bank a $250,000 AHP grant on behalf of the initiative.

"The Bank was instrumental in helping us to achieve the
$1 million in grants we needed to make the financing work," says Mr. Nolan. "The Federal Home Loan Bank System can be counted on to come to the table and work cooperatively with partnerships created for these worthwhile developments."

"One of the joys of doing this is being able to bring this to the community," adds Mr. Nolan. "The residents have come back and told us how pleased they are to be living there, close to services and everything they need."