Akron City Council settled two high-profile plans Monday to house the homeless on the city’s outskirts and attract upper-income dwellers downtown.
Plans to build Stoney Pointe Commons, an $11.3 million, four-story apartment complex for the chronically homeless and disabled, will move forward. Tober Development Co., a Richfield firm, has partnered with Community Support Services to construct the subsidized housing unit on Vernon Odom Boulevard.
Todd Tober, the developer, has withdrawn a request to build a smaller parking lot for low-income or no-income tenants who likely don’t drive.
The parking variance request made the project a matter of public disclosure at the council meeting. The project’s future neighbors have protested for nearly two months that concentrating the homeless in their community would drive up crime and depress property values.
During a public comment period at the end of the council meeting, Danny Crum, who lives near the planned development, referenced a $250,000 payment from the city to the Stoney Pointe project. Councilman Mike Freeman, who sounded upset that he had found out about the payment only minutes before the meeting, confirmed that it had been issued from a federal grant that passed through the city.
City Planning Director Jason Segedy said the $250,000 was part of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant that is typically awarded to new construction projects that benefit the homeless.
“Because there are so few of these projects each year, people will ask us” for the money, Segedy said. “Mr. Tober in this case asked us for the … funds.”
Contacted after the meeting, Tober said the city’s commitment for the payment has been in place since last February, is an intended use of the HUD money and “has been used on many of the affordable housing projects in Akron.”
Construction plans
Tober, who has plans to add on to the complex, had said earlier that he will break ground on the 68-unit apartment complex by March, following city code calling for 1½ parking spaces per unit.
“We were requesting a variance to this requirement to provide 39 spaces as most of the residents do not own cars nor is it likely that many of them will ever own cars,” Tober said in an email Monday after asking the council to drop his request in the face of steep opposition from the community.
“After listening to the comments and concerns of the neighbors and looking at the project in its entirety, we made the tough decision to withdraw the request for the zoning variance and commit to installing parking per local zoning code,” Tober said.
The second development before the council Monday involved the selling of six downtown properties to the Bowery Development Group, which includes two developers and an array of consultants and investors.
Leading the planning are Geis Cos. of Streetsboro and the DeHoff Development Co. of North Canton.
With the plan now approved by the council, the developers will pay $10 total for five city-owned buildings on Main Street between the Akron Civic Theatre and the Landmark Building at the corner of West Bowery and South Main streets.
The Landmark, which the city bought for $2.9 million in the late 1990s, will be offloaded to the developers for $1.3 million, to be paid after 30 years of tax abatements on the improved value of the 12-story high-rise.
The historic downtown city block, to be called the Bowery, will be remade into shops and restaurants with storefronts on Main Street and back patios off the canal. On the upper floors will be loft units that the admittedly “cash-strapped” city hopes will attract young professionals and empty nesters with disposable income.
Quick action urged
The project sailed through the council in a week, receiving a second hearing in committee Monday before being put to a full and favorable vote hours later with all council members present. Developers, and backers in Mayor Dan Horrigan’s administration, urged haste to hit construction and financing deadlines.
Developers plan to line up $20 million in private financing for the $33 million project.
The rest will come from donations and tax subsidies for spurring economic development and restoring the historic facade of Akron buildings erected at the turn of the 20th century. Those tax credits will be awarded in March.
Construction will begin immediately thereafter. In the planning committee, the council received assurances from city administrators that the developers would get the tax credits and secure financing, avoiding a similar deal that was inked in 2008 but never materialized.
Council members visited a similar development by Geis Co. in Cleveland, called the 9, over the weekend and walked through the empty Landmark on Monday.
“It was my first time ever in that building,” said Councilman Donnie Kammer, who described climbing to the seventh floor and looking out over downtown. “I can visualize how nice this project is going to be, and if someone wants to live downtown, they’ll take advantage of that view.”