More workforce housing is on the way in Grand Traverse County as construction broke ground Friday on a $45 million apartment complex near Chums Corner, demolition crews cleared the former Teboe Florist site to make way for a new senior housing complex, and Traverse City planning commissioners scheduled an August 6 public hearing on a rezoning request that would allow Orchardview Apartments to significantly expand.

Corners Crossing
Local and state leaders gathered Friday for a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 192-unit workforce housing development in Blair Township. Wallick Communities, in collaboration with co-developer Homestretch Nonprofit Housing Corporation and other partners, closed on financing in June for the estimated $45 million project on Deronda Drive (formerly Prevo Road) off US-31 near Chums Corner. Several funding sources – from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) to a Blair Township payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement to a $1.5 million Grand Traverse County American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant – helped support the project.

Corners Crossing, as the project is called, is planned to have eight three-story buildings, with each building housing 24 apartments. The development will have a mix of 96 one-bedroom, 78 two-bedroom, and 18 three-bedroom units. Apartments will be targeted to families earning 80-90 percent of the area median income (AMI). A community building is also planned for the site with a meeting room, kitchen area, offices, a gym/fitness facility, and maintenance and storage areas.

Corners Crossing (pictured, rendering) is the first workforce housing project for Wallick Communities, the same development group behind senior living community Meadow Valley on North Long Lake Road, according to the company’s website https://www.wallick.com/wallick-enters-a-new-business-market-workforce-housing/. Citing Traverse City’s struggles to retain talent given “high housing costs and elevated rents,” Wallick Communities said the new apartment complex “fulfills high demand, allowing middle-income families who work in Traverse City to live within the community.”

“Wallick has always been a provider of attainable housing for all and is responding to the housing crisis facing our middle-income families with our foundation of experience in finding creative and complex financing solutions to make it happen,” said Wallick Communities Senior Vice President of Development Alexis Dunfee in a statement.

Parkview Apartments
Construction work is finally beginning on a senior affordable housing complex several years in the making. Recent demolition work cleared the former Teboe Florist building off the property at 1223 East Eighth Street near the Civic Center. The Traverse City Housing Commission (TCHC) is working with project partners Ethos Development Partners and Cove Investments to build Parkview Apartments, a new 46-unit senior apartment complex. The site will host a four-story building featuring 34 one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom apartments. One hundred percent of the apartments will be designated affordable, with all units rented to tenants ages 55 and over who earn less than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI) in Grand Traverse County. Eight units will be subsidized with project-based vouchers from TCHC.

In October, MSHDA approved mortgage loans for the $16.9 million development, with 23 units to be financed with tax-exempt bonds and MSHDA gap funding and the remaining 23 units to be financed with taxable bonds. TCHC also received funding support from the local Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, as well as the City of Traverse City through a PILOT agreement.

Construction on Parkview Apartments is supposed to take 18 to 24 months to complete. In its brownfield application, TCHC said that the development will “clear away the blighting elements” on the vacant site and “create high quality, affordable, permanent housing for 46 senior households in the heart of Traverse City.” The location of the site – situated near a BATA stop and a stone’s throw from the Civic Center – is ideal for senior tenants, TCHC leaders previously said, and is expected to help alleviate a years-long wait list for senior housing.

Orchardview Apartments
Traverse City planning commissioners voted this week to schedule an August 6 public hearing on a TCHC request to rezone the Orchardview Apartments property at 10200 East Carter Road from RC (Residential Conservation District) to R-3 (Multi-Family Dwelling District). Rezoning would allow TCHC to apply for MSHDA funding this fall to support constructing two new apartment buildings on the property, bringing the total number of units from 22 up to 50-55.

The property was originally approved for multi-family housing in 1991 through a special land use permit (SLUP). But in 1999, the city adopted a new zoning ordinance that changed the property zoning to RC, according to City Planning Director Shawn Winter. That made Orchardview Apartments a non-conforming use and essentially barred developing any more multi-family housing on the site. Winter said TCHC’s rezoning request would legalize the current development and allow it to qualify for funding to expand. He said the move was consistent with both the current and new draft master plan and the city’s goals of encouraging more affordable housing.

Orchardview Apartments primarily has three and four-bedroom units now – making it able to accommodate families, Winter noted – and would seek to add a mix of one and two-bedroom units in the new buildings to serve a variety of tenants. A deed restriction on the property will ensure the apartments will remain as affordable housing for at least 45 years, TCHC Executive Director Karl Fulmer said.

Photo credit: Wallick Communities