Group seeks $100,000 for Phase I infrastructure at Legacy Trails

The local Habitat chapter finished its first major remodeling project in April, an approximately $20,000 rehabilitation of a century-old home at State and Market streets, in partnership with Missouri State University’s Habitat student chapter.

The home was donated to the university by the city of Springfield, and the renovation was the university chapter’s centennial project.

Habitat of Springfield plans to do more remodeling work in the future, but it won’t likely be until homes in Legacy Trails are complete.

Habitat recently completed infrastructure work at Legacy Trails, a 56-home development in north Springfield. Legacy Trails is about a mile north of Interstate 44, east of Highway 13.

Executive Director Jan Sederholm said the $540,000 price tag on the work was partly covered through a combination of fund raising, Habitat ReStore proceeds and state and federal grants.

Grant money includes $200,000 through a state Community Development Block Grant and another $140,000 through the federal Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Still, Habitat is $100,000 short of paying off the infrastructure costs for Phase I of Legacy Trails.

In addition to raising awareness of the ReStore, 4535 W. Chestnut Expressway, which offers new and donated building materials, the chapter is in the midst of planning its second annual Tool Belts & Bow Ties. The event will be Nov. 17 at the University Plaza Convention Center.

Tickets, which are $75, are available by calling Habitat, (417) 829-4001 before Nov. 14.

Anna Codutti, development director for Habitat of Springfield, said Tool Belts & Bow Ties features a seated dinner and live and silent auctions in addition to an auction of an unusual sort.

“We auction off custom-built playhouses – Habitats for Habitots,” Codutti said. “They’re designed by students, by architects here in town, construction clubs – the kind you’d never find retail.”

Last year’s event, she said, raised $23,000 for the chapter – more than double the projection.

This year, Codutti added, the group hopes Tool Belts & Bow Ties raises as much as $40,000.

More homes, less money

Six of the 56 homes in Legacy Trails were started this year, and two are finished.

One finished home was completed in a weeklong blitz build in July at the Price Cutter Charity Championship. The second home – which is the first to be built on-site at Legacy Trails – is scheduled to be dedicated Oct. 14. That home, built for the Mark Goss family, was sponsored by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

All told, Habitat of Springfield expects to provide homes for 11 families by the end of 2006.

And it doesn’t seem as if demand will slow down for Habitat homes, which are provided to lower-income families for no interest in exchange for “sweat equity” they earn by helping to build Habitat homes – either their own or those for other families.

“We’ve got 24 new homeowners who were just selected,” Sederholm said. “Our commitment to them is to have them all in houses by the end of 2007.”

That demand may be the reason that many Habitat chapters are increasingly looking at remodeling to provide homes. Even though remodeling is usually at least as expensive as new construction, Sederholm said there may be more of it done through Habitat of Springfield.

“We … have the opportunity many times of having houses donated that would be perfectly good homes for folks,” Sederholm said.

“We’re thinking that in the future, given the city of Springfield and its needs, that’s the direction we’ll want to go.”

New state and federal grants are being made available for remodeling projects would help bring down costs, Sederholm said, adding that remodeling is a way Habitat can help existing homeowners who may be elderly or disabled.