GREENFIELD — A developer eyeing the site of the former Center Street Shoppes for an income-based apartment community has been awarded more than half a million dollars in federal tax credits to build.
The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority announced late last week Fort Wayne-based Keller Development has been chosen for $760,000 of a low-income housing tax credit to build its purposed complex, Broadway Flats, off Center Street in Greenfield.
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit is a federally-funded, competitive program that provides tax breaks to developers as incentives for offering lower, more affordable rent for low-income earners.
Keller Development announced plans last fall to build a 54-unit, income-based apartment complex catering to artists and entrepreneurs along the Pennsy Trail; the project was approved by city officials in October.
With the tax credits in hand, the project — estimated to cost about $8.5 million — will move forward, said Dawn Gallaway of Keller Development.
Final details on a timeline for construction of the project are still being worked out, Gallaway said.
Broadway Flats is one of 62 projects that were considered for the competitive award, according to a news release from the lieutenant governor’s office.
Altogether, 16 projects were chosen for nearly $14 million in tax breaks, the news release states.
The local project calls from 38 two-bedroom and 16 one-bedroom apartments to be built. The project targets residents earning 60 percent or less of the area’s median income — or no more than about $32,000 annually.
Rent would be between $325 and $625 monthly, depending on the applicant’s income, officials said.
City planner Joanie Fitzwater said she’s eager to see the project get started, saying it will help revitalize an area of the Pennsy Trail that has struggled to thrive the past few years while also filling a gap in affordable housing options in the city.
The Center Street Shoppes once was a busy, small village of shops, but those storefronts are now mostly vacant.
Though Center Street sits outside the boundary’s of Greenfield’s downtown, the street sits close enough to the area to help meet a need for more downtown housing, a goal of the city’s downtown revitalization plan, Fitzwater said.
“This will do so much to move our downtown revitalization efforts forward,” Fitzwater said.