CLEARING THE LAND — Site-preparation work has begun for an affordable-housing apartment complex planned for a 10-acre parcel on the southwest corner of West New Hampshire and South Clara avenues on DeLand’s south side.
BEACON PHOTO/MARSHA MCLAUGHLIN
AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS ON THE WAY — This rendering shows what one of the three-story apartment buildings will look like when The Pines is finished, probably by the end of next January.
IMAGE COURTESY ROUNDSTONE DEVELOPMENT
Construction is underway for an affordable-housing apartment complex on DeLand’s south side.
Roundstone Development LLC, of Dallas, plans for The Pines to be a six-building, 100-unit complex of apartments on the southwest corner of South Clara and West New Hampshire avenues. The cluster of two- and three-story buildings will occupy an entire 10-acre block bordered by South Delaware Avenue on the west and West Beresford Road on the south.
“We develop affordable housing and were looking at different markets,” said Clifton Phillips, president of Roundstone Development. “We felt DeLand could use additional affordable housing.”
The Pines will consist of 24 one-bedroom units, 32 two-bedroom units, 24 three-bedroom units, and 20 four-bedroom units, Phillips said. The homes will be set aside for households earning up to 40 and 60 percent of the area median income.
“It’s not Section 8 housing, but tenants can make only a certain amount of income,” Phillips said. “Rents will be 20 to 30 percent lower than market rates.”
The complex also will include a one-story community center, which will house on-site management, a clubhouse with a community kitchen, a business center, a library/meeting room, a fitness room, a laundry room, a swimming pool, and a playground.
Roundstone’s total development costs — including $1.55 million paid for the property — will total $18.62 million, but some of that will be covered by a $13.43 million federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) investment by Hunt Capital Partners, a privately held company that invests in businesses focused in the real estate and infrastructure markets.
According to the state-run Florida Housing Finance Corp., another of Roundstone’s partners in The Pines, the LIHTC program provides organizations with a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal tax liability in exchange for new construction of low-income and very-low-income rental housing units. The credit allocation can be used for 10 consecutive years once the development is placed in service.
“It’s a very competitive process,” Phillips said of the LIHTC program. “We were very fortunate we were awarded a credit.”
But all the financing is in place — J.P. Morgan Chase is the primary lender — and construction was able to begin in December, Phillips said.
The first building could get tenants by November or December of this year, he added, and the entire complex is scheduled for completion at the end of next January.
— Joe Crews, joe@beacononlinenews.com