Plans Change For Senior Tower, Vacant Lot

The owner of the decaying Edith Johnson Towers will fix up the place rather than rebuild it nearby.

And the city has a vacant lot ready for someone to build on it.

That situation is the result of a new twist in the city’s planning for two properties in the Dixwell neighborhood.

The plan involves Edith Johnson, the 43-year-old, 95-unit, 14-story brick senior public-housing development at 114 Bristol St.; and a long-vacant 2.3‑acre city-owned lot on Henry Street between Ashmun and Canal Streets, next to 25 Science Park and the Monterey Place public-housing complex.

The original plan was to knock down Edith Johnson and have its owner, Beacon/Corcoran/Jennison, build a U‑shaped four-story 95-unit senior public-housing complex on that vacant lot, filling in a stretch of the Dixwell/Newhallville border rapidly filling in with market-rate apartments like the 400-unit development planned for an Olin factory site; workforce ​“Ashmun Flats” homes Juan Salas-Romer has already built at Henry and Munson; plus an evolving artists’ living-work complex in an abandoned old factory a block away. Then the city would regain ownership of the Edith Johnson land on Bristol and figure out later what to put there.

The city chose Beacon/Corcoran in 2016 to build the new tower on the new lot. (Read about that here.)

Beacon On Bristol …

That plan relied on Beacon (which also runs Monterey) to obtain federal 9 percent low-income housing tax credits to finance the project. The quasi-public Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) administers that money. Beacon applied, then submitted two new drafts, according to Beacon Communities Development President Dara Kovel.

“It became clear that there was not a space in the [state’s funding] priorities for the type of project we had originally conceived of,” Kovel said. The scoring system for proposals had changed along with state priorities, away from senior housing in cities.

So Beacon has decided instead to seek state money to fix up Edith Johnson. This time it is seeking easier-to-obtain 4 percent tax credits and a $5 million-$6 million ​“soft loan” under the CHAMP [Competitive Housing Assistance for Multifamily Properties] program administered by the state Department of Housing (DOH).

Now Beacon is waiting to hear whether that money is forthcoming.

“We have an application from them, and it is currently under review. We hope to conclude our review either later this month or early next,” reported DOH spokesperson Daniel A. Arsenault.

If the money’s approved, Beacon will start by addressing ​“water penetration issues in the building,” Kovel said. ​“We need to reskin the building, create some better seal. This was a flaw in the original construction. Our property management has done a great job of maintaining it and patching and repairing it.”

Subsequent work would include addressing building systems, improving common areas, sprucing up hallways.

… While On Henry …

Meanwhile, city government plans to issue a new request for proposals this week or next for developers who wish to build on the 2.3‑acre lot, said Serena Neal-Sanjurjo. Neal-Sanjurjo runs the city’s neighborhood development and anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI).

“I’d like to get some residential townhouses, maybe some kind of retail space” on a scale to match the two-story Monterey Homes and the similarly scaled planned 400 apartments across the way on Munson Street, Neal-Sanjurjo said.

Salas-Romer said he ​“absolutely” plans to submit a proposal for the land. He envisions building not low-income or upscale housing there, but mid-market housing geared to households earning $40,000 to $50,000 a year. His NHR Group has been targeting that market in other developments around town, including the ​“Ashmun Flats” apartments he built across the street from the vacant lot at the old Cardinals Café. He said those apartments are filled.

His target renter for a project on the vacant lot would be someone who works nearby, such as a teacher, he said.