One of Alexandria’s public-housing projects will receive about $10 million in federal dollars through a tax credit program that officials had not expected to qualify for.
The Station at Potomac Yards, which includes four stories of public housing built atop a new fire station, had originally been rejected from the program. It was one of three affordable- or public-housing projects in the city that didn’t receive federal funding under preliminary rulings last month.
The station’s scores didn’t change, but someof the projects it was competing against for the federal money in other parts of Virginia were deemed less desirable in the final judging, said Helen McIlvane, Alexandria’s deputy housing director.
The federal money allows the project to go forward “without skipping a beat,” McIlvane said. Groundbreaking could start as soon as September, she said.
“We think this is the new way of building affordable housing in the city, atop a municipal building,” McIlvane said.
When complete, the 168,000-square-foot building will house some retail space and a four-bay fire station on the ground floor. The four floors above will have 64 affordable-housing apartments of one to three bedrooms.
The developer working on Poto- mac Yards, a partnership of Pulte Homes and Centex Homes called Potomac Yard Development, signed the property deed over to the city at a May 8 council meeting.
Scores for the redevelopment and refurbishment projects at Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s Glebe Park apartments and Arbelo Apartments did not change from the preliminary results, so they will not receive federal dollars.
A number of changes will be made to the Arbelo Apartments application next year, said Herb Cooper-Levy, executive director of RPJ Housing Development Corp. He wanted to renovate the aging apartments with electrical upgrades, landscaping, new kitchens and bathrooms. Instead, he’ll present plans for cheaper renovations, one way of increasing his chances of getting the federal money.
“This puts us back by a year,” Cooper-Levy said.
