Local nonprofit housing project makes progress

Construction is on deck in north Springfield as a homeownership program is rolling out a new pocket neighborhood.

The purchase of property in the Grant Beach neighborhood two years ago by a local nonprofit to boost affordable housing availability is progressing toward occupancy of several homes by year’s end, officials say.

The development, dubbed the Broadway Cottage Courtyard, is flanked by Broadway Avenue to the west, Poplar Street to the south and Weaver Avenue to the east. The construction work is being led by the Drew Lewis Foundation Inc. as part of its homeownership program, the Blue House Project. Its CEO, Amy Blansit, provided an update Feb. 26 at the nonprofit’s home at The Fairbanks, 1126 N. Broadway Ave.

Eventually, 14 new homes will sit on a 1.2-acre piece of property at the northwest corner of Broadway Avenue and Poplar Street that the nonprofit purchased from J.L. Reynolds LLC in 2024 for $115,000, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. The two-story houses will face a courtyard with a meandering sidewalk.

“Half of them will have garages, the other half facing Broadway will not, and that was something where the city is working on decreasing the amount of driveways for driving safety,” Blansit said. “We ended up doing street parking on those.”

The three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes will be separated by roughly 10 feet and are expected to include front and back porches, as well as connecting sidewalks to help foster a sense of community. The floor plan for the roughly 1,600-square-foot, two-story houses puts the bedrooms on the second floor.

Blansit said the homes should appeal to a mix of property seekers, such as individuals either new to the housing market, someone looking to slightly upgrade from their current house or older adults wanting to downsize their residence.

The development also will include a community center that all residents can access. The nonprofit is lead contractor for Broadway Cottage Courtyard with BRP Architects serving as the project architect.

“What we fought for time and time again was we do not want a street separating these houses,” Blansit said. “We want a true cottage courtyard, and so that’s the design here. We’ll have a meandering sidewalk in between the houses, so your front yard is actually what we think of as a backyard, not facing the street. But we also will have a design to where the front of it still is street facing, and it’ll also look like a front porch.

“But because half of them will have garages, we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just a garage facing view, and so it still has really good street appeal.”

Timeline talk
Blansit said the project will have a detention pond; she noted anytime a construction project disturbs more than an acre of land, it requires a federal permit under the Clean Water Act. Additionally, the stormwater management in that area was dated and needed to be improved, she said.

“That’s created just a bunch of hurdles because there’s also a sewer line, a fiber optic line, a water line and a gas line that we get to weave through,” she said, adding pipes should be delivered and stormwater work should be started this month. “Once the detention pond is approved, we’ll start putting in sewer lines.”

After sewer lines are completed, she estimated crews should start pouring concrete for the house foundations within the next 90 days. Home construction will start on the north side and move south.

“We should have the first eight finished around the end of the year,” she said.

On the market
Seven of the homes will be sold at below market value, which Blansit estimates at $155,000, to participants in the foundation’s RISE program.

The initiative, which stands for Reaching Independence through Support and Education, serves as a yearlong effort to help participants reach financial stability through coaching coupled with curriculum in areas including education, employment, debt reduction and parenting.

The remaining homes will likely be sold at current market rates, roughly $175,000-$180,000, she said. Blansit said the nonprofit’s Blue House Project can sell at below market rate because they can build and sell with lower costs than a developer.

“One, we purchase our materials without sales tax, so that helps us save,” she said. “We have our own construction crew as well, so that helps reduce some of the overhead and costs there. And then we generally are selling without Realtors and generally purchasing without Realtors involved, so then that also saves that percentage there.”

The Blue House Project is a privately and publicly funded homeownership program launched eight years ago. Houses in the Grant Beach neighborhood are bought, renovated and rented primarily to RISE members who have graduated the nonprofit’s program with the goal of selling the home to them within two years.

The nonprofit sells roughly 30% of the houses it renovates through the Blue House Project at market rate, Blansit said. Those who buy a home at below market must agree to stay for at least five years.

“At five years and one day, our right of first refusal is waived, and they’re welcome to sell,” she said.

More than 30 homes have been rehabilitated through the program, resulting in a community investment of roughly $4.5 million, Blansit said.

The median price for homes sold in the Grant Beach neighborhood over the past 12 months was $142,400, according to Greater Springfield Board of Realtors data.

Replicable work
Tim Rosenbury, director of quality of place initiatives for the city of Springfield, said he has been in numerous meetings in recent years concerning efforts by the Drew Lewis Foundation in the Grant Beach neighborhood. He’s hopeful that the work the nonprofit does through its Blue House Project can be replicated by others.

“We want to work with social entrepreneurs who do this kind of work,” he said. “One of the challenges, frankly, is that simply doing good work does not mean that you can take shortcuts or that you’re entitled to pass on paths. We still have a responsibility to all of the community to make sure that what is getting developed, what’s getting built, is compliant with safety and soundness regulations.”

While Blansit said there are enough funds to complete the Broadway Cottage Courtyard, sponsors for several of the homes are being sought.

“What we don’t have are the funds in order to then keep the houses at the affordable costs that we want them at. That’s really what we’re working to raise,” she said, adding the seven homes planned to be sold at below market rates each have sponsorship opportunities of $30,000.

Rosenbury said the city is working with the developer to make the Broadway Cottage Courtyard project come to fruition.

“It’s not easy because it’s different. My own belief is that once it’s done and when it’s successful, there will be imitators,” he said. “Others will follow. I’m fond of saying that Springfield can be a bandwagon town, and I think that this could start a new bandwagon.”