Candy Neal and Jonathan Streetman, Herald Staff Writer

Two local housing projects have moved closer to becoming a reality after they were granted more than $2.5 million in funding from the state.

Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann announced Thursday that the state is awarding the Jasper Lofts project $1,199,705 in credits and $500,000 in other housing authority funding. The Benet Hall project in Ferdinand was awarded $411,500 in credits and $400,000 in other funding. The money comes through the Internal Revenue Service’s Rental Housing Tax Credit program, which the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority administers, and housing authority funding.

The Jasper Lofts will be a transformation of about 100,000 square feet of the former Jofco furniture manufacturing plant at 13th and Vine streets into 60 to 70 apartments. The Miller-Valentine Group of Cincinnati plans to make 15 to 20 percent of those living spaces into one-bedroom units, 60 to 70 percent will be two-bedroom apartments and a few will be three-bedroom units. The project is estimated to cost $12 million.

“We don’t take this lightly,” Jasper Mayor Terry Seitz said. “This is the first project of its kind in Jasper and is a true culmination of the Jasper Riverfront Master Plan.”

Seitz said the city shared information in the plan — which includes re-purposing former industrial properties that are now empty — with Miller-Valentine when company representatives visited the city in October 2013. They examined various properties “and that was the one they latched on to,” he said of the structure north and east of the immediate downtown area.

Jofco’s administrative offices moved out of the building in August 2013, a couple months before it was announced that the company would merge with Jasper Group. Cash Waggner & Associates of Jasper purchased the building in November 2013 and is renovating some of the building for the firm and its subsidiary company, Testing & Inspection Services.

While the building itself is not specifically included in the riverfront master plan document, plan consultants advised the city against confining revitalization to downtown and riverfront spaces.

“The plan has been a wonderful tool for us in looking at re-purposing buildings in the city, of which the Jofco building is one,” Seitz said. “We hope that this is just the first one in many.”

Miller-Valentine representative Pete Schwiegeraht said Thursday afternoon that the company will now begin working on the actual design for the property and secure other funding sources. If everything goes according to plan, construction will commence at the end of this year or early next year with the units being available for rent sometime between January and March 2017, Schwiegeraht said.

Miller-Valentine is also currently working on closing the sale of the former St. Joseph’s Hospital in Huntingburg, which the company intends to turn into 45 senior housing units as part of that city’s Stellar Communities initiative.

Benet Hall at Monastery Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand is a vacant space that will be converted to apartments. The plan was announced to Ferdinand’s Town Council in September by Carla Naum of Milestone Ventures. The Indianapolis consulting firm specializes in collaborating with nonprofits to create affordable housing developments.

The idea at Benet Hall was to renovate the currently vacant building, the structure closest to Michigan Street on the west edge of the property, into 15 two-bedroom senior housing apartments. Naum said then last fall the apartments would be eligible for individuals earning up to $32,400 annually, although she suspects the average income to be closer to $20,000. A multi-tier rent structure will be put into place to make the apartments affordable at any income. The apartments will meet the highest of energy-saving standards.

The project is estimated to cost $2.9 million. In October, the town council approved a tax abatement for six years; the first three years would be at 100 percent abatement (no taxes paid), year four at 75 percent, year five at 50 percent and the final year would be 25 percent abatement.

Town Council President Ken Sicard said the tax credit award to the Benet Hall project will prove to be a great move for the entire town.

“As this project comes to fulfillment, it means that our seniors will now have some additional housing possibilities. In the past, some of our citizens may have had to move away will now be able to continue their life in town much longer,” Sicard said Thursday. “For the Sisters of St. Benedict, the first positive is that they have a viable use for one of their buildings. This removes the cost of keeping the building in a mothball state. They now received everything they needed to get this project rolling. Eventually, as the apartments are rented, the community will see some added benefits.”

Benet Hall was a living area for sisters, although it’s been vacant for several years.

A total of 16 multi-family housing developments throughout Indiana received more than $12.5 million in tax credits. Ten of the 16 received a combined sum of more than $5 million in additional housing authority funding.

The only project to receive more credits than the lofts in Jasper was a development in Lake County near Chicago, which was granted $1,200,000. Benet Hall’s credit amount was the smallest among the 16 that made the cut from a list of 52 proposals submitted last fall.

Statewide, project activities include new construction, rehabilitation, adaptive reuse (conversion of existing structures) and the preservation of historic buildings. The 2015 RHTC allocation totaling $12,536,748 million will fund 809 housing units and could leverage up to $112 million in private development capital.

“These projects utilize public and private investment to address the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of existing structures, support larger community development initiatives and further efforts  towards stabilizing neighborhoods,” said Ellspermann, who chairs the IHCDA Board. “Affordable housing options are a vital component to promoting Hoosier self-sufficiency and revitalizing our communities.”