Center-city cooperative sells first project

Renovating the 1510 N. Grant Ave. home was the first project for Urban Neighborhoods LLC, a joint venture of Urban Neighborhoods Alliance, Great Southern Community Development Corp. and the city of Springfield.

‘New life’

Brent and Leah Smith and their children moved to Springfield from Oxford, Miss., because Brent Smith on Oct. 1 became the pastor of Grant Avenue Baptist Church. The church is five blocks from the house.

“They say, “Location, location, location,’” he said. “It was very important to me that I find something in the neighborhood.”

The Smiths heard about the three-bedroom, two-bath house from a woman at the church. They looked at the house Aug. 21 and put a contract on it the same day.

“We’re just delighted No. 1, with how the house has turned out. And No. 2 with the purchasers,” said Brian Fogle, executive director of GSCDC. “It’s a family, it’s children. When we started this with UNA that’s exactly what we had in mind, a family bringing new life into the neighborhood.”

UNA Executive Director Bob Horton added, “This certainly reinforces the notion that living close to where you work helps to stabilize the neighborhood.”

The original vision

The home, built in 1902, was converted into two apartments in the 1950s and was boarded up in the 1990s to keep out transients.

It was abandoned in 1998 and declared a blighted property. In 2003, the city acquired the property after thousands of dollars of unpaid liens were levied against it. The city then sold the house for $1 to UNA.

“It was on the dangerous buildings list, so it was in the process of going through hearings to determine whether it should be demolished or saved,” said Horton, whose group’s role in Urban Neighborhoods LLC was to provide oversight while GSCDC provided capital.

The renovations took about six months and included new windows, plumbing, electrical wiring and roof.

“This is a project that has been very labor-intensive,” Horton said. “But yet, to see this come full-circle and to see the type of family we get into this house has been rewarding. It makes people see what can happen in neighborhood revitalization.”

The home’s listing price was $115,000, though Urban Neighborhoods LLC had previously estimated the cost of renovations to be $97,000. Horton declined to disclose how much the house actually sold for, but he did say that whatever doesn’t go to cover the cost of renovations will be split between UNA and the city of Springfield. The city will use the funds to recoup a portion of the costs associated with acquiring the house, Horton added.

More to come

Urban Neighborhoods LLC is looking for its next project.

“We’re doing this for many reasons,” Fogle added. “First and foremost, we want to help these neighborhoods develop and redevelop, but (GSCDC) is a for-profit company and we feel very strongly that for community development to be sustainable over time there’s got to be profit in it. Not only just us, but for other investors to come into a neighborhood they need to have confidence that they can come in, do a house and make some money.”

Fogle noted that with future projects, Urban Neighborhoods LLC would like to come down into the $60,000 to $70,000 price range.

“When we entered into this with UNA ... it was really both of our expectations and understanding that this would be the first of many projects,” Fogle said.

Another Center-City Makeover

Even as Urban Neighborhoods LLC is searching for its next project, one of its key players is in the midst of a makeover project of its own.

Urban Neighborhoods Alliance is renovating the house at 801 N. Main Ave. Work on the home, which was donated to UNA, began earlier this year, and UNA Executive Director Bob Horton said he hopes it will be finished in December.

“All the interior demolition is done,” he said. “We’ve got most of the framing done inside the house. The new windows, new roof and siding have already been put on the house. Subcontractors for the plumbing and electrical are starting to work in there now.”

The four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom, 2,362-square-foot home is expected to have a price tag of $135,000 when finished, said Horton, who noted that UNA has worked closely with the Community Alternative Sentencing Program to provide labor on interior demolition.

Proceeds from the sale of the Main Avenue home will benefit a new UNA program called the Housing Center. The goal of the Housing Center is to offer a variety of programs and services that help neighborhood residents become successful homeowners or renters, Horton said.

The American Dream

The city of Springfield, in addition to providing the house for nearly nothing, aided the Smiths in the purchase through the American Dream Downpayment Initiative program.

ADDI is a Department of Housing and Urban Development entitlement that the city receives to assist qualified buyers with closing costs or a down payment.

Pam Smith, community development residential loan officer with the city, said that the Grant Avenue house and its buyers qualified by meeting location, income and history requirements.

The main requirements are that a person cannot have owned a home in the last three years, that they are below 80 percent of the median income for Springfield based on the total number of occupants in the household and that the home is located within the qualified area.

Smith said those boundaries are roughly Springfield city limits to the north, Glenstone Avenue to the east, Grand Street to the south and West Bypass to the west.

ADDI loans can be for up to $7,000; there is no interest, and monthly payments are not required. The loans do not have to be paid back until the homes are sold or the owners cease to occupy the homes as the primary residences.

The city has been operating ADDI since it was enacted by the Bush Administration in 2003. Smith said 19 loans have been closed and six are approved and waiting to close, though she said the program hasn’t performed as well nationally.

While the city received it highest amount of ADDI funds – $78,409 – in 2004, it has dropped to $22,310 in 2006, and Springfield leaders do not know if the money will come next year.

Smith said it is disappointing because of those the program has helped, including Brent Smith’s family.

“This particular (sale), in all the ones that we’ve done, just kind of epitomizes what we are trying to achieve with this,” the city’s Smith said. “It was just a collaborative effort and everything fell into place ideally like how we would envision it.”