Affordable Senior Housing in Pittsburgh, PA -- Grand Opening

July 8, 2011 - PRLog -- PRESS RELEASE                  
Contact:  Victor Rodriguez
   412-231-3621


GRAND OPENNING OF SOUTH HILLS RETIREMENT RESIDENCE

Affordable Senior Housing on Mt. Washington


Pittsburgh (Mt. Washington), PA… The Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony will  be held on July 13th at 2:00 pm at South Hills Retirement Residence, 125 Ruth Street, Mt. Washington, PA.

This monumental project involved the conversion of the former South Hills High School to 106 units of senior apartments – 84 units of which are affordable and 22 which are non-income restricted.  The project also has approx. 12,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.  The former South Hills High School sat vacant and in disrepair for 20 years until the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA) approached a.m. Rodriguez Associates, inc. in 2005 to look into possible reuses of the building for senior housing.  After 4 years of planning, designing and fund-raising the project began construction in June 2009, thanks to a generous $1.5M from the PA Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program obtained by State Senator Wayne Fontana which closed the last gap in the financing.  

Initial participants in the rehabilitation of South Hills High School included the Mount Washington Community Development Corporation (MWCDC), URA, Pittsburgh Board of Education (BOE) and a.m. Rodriguez Associates, inc., who was the developer chosen by the URA and the MWCDC.   In 2005, the BOE spent $3.5M, demolishing and abating parts of the building and repairing the roof on the school so that it could more easily be converted into the mixed-use facility that the Mount Washington Community envisioned.  a.m. Rodriguez Associates, inc. submitted a proposal to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) to rehabilitate the property to the 106 units of senior apartments.  The project was initially awarded tax credits in 2008 and then an additional allocation in 2009 which totaled $1.7M in annual credits, the most PHFA had ever awarded to one project.  PHFA also awarded the project $1.5M of their PennHOMES soft funds, which is the maximum amount allowed per project.  

a.m. Rodriguez Associates, inc. is well known in the affordable housing industry for their inclusion of an array of "alternative living spaces" for residents to socialize with others. Numerous amenities were included at South Hills Retirement Residence such as game and craft rooms, a library, community room/dining area, wellness center/cantina, hair care center, media room, an exercise area and a beautiful roof-top greenhouse.  These alternative spaces allow the residents to socialize and stay active.  All the units and common areas are designed to allow the residents to “age in place”.  The units have spacious floor plans and the building has wide corridors so that wheelchairs have plenty of room to move.

One of the challenges of reusing large buildings for affordable housing is that the volume of space is often greater than typical new construction.  With this challenge in mind, a.m. Rodriguez Associates, inc., in collaboration with Sota Construction Services, the Contractor, applied to the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) and was awarded a $500,000 grant to install a 27kW Photovoltaic Solar Array and 65kW Co-generation Turbine, both of which produce electricity on site and reduce utility bills by approx. $35,000/year.  The carbon footprint of the energy produced on site versus local coal fired utility power is reduced by 80%. In addition to the Co-generation Turbine, a 2,000 gallon hot water storage tank was installed to allow peak shaving by the Unit.  This will greatly reduce demand charges from the local electric utility company.  a.m. Rodriguez Associates, inc., and, Sota Construction Services, Inc., had completed several LEED Certified rehabilitations in the past, but none of them included the alternative energy production strategies used at South Hills Retirement Residence.  An efficient water-source heat pump system was installed which can also use the excess heat from the co-generation turbine so that the boilers are not needed during milder temperatures.  The building is projected to receive the LEED for Homes Gold designation.  

The financing structure for the project was very challenging and included eight permanent sources.  

Permanent Financing/Sources
FHA Insured Loan         $2,300,000
URA (DCED & HOME Funds)      $3,000,000
RACP Grant (Senator Fontana)      $1,500,000
PHFA PennHOMES Funds      $1,500,000
Federal Home Loan Bank-AHP Funds      $600,000
ARRA-TCAP Funds            $788,742
Penn. Energy Dev. Authority Grant      $500,000
John Hancock Tax Credit Equity           $13,342,331
TOTAL                                  $23,531,073

This was the first non-preservation Low Income Housing Tax Credit project in the region to use FHA Financing.  The Pittsburgh HUD Office was very accommodating to make this project work, and understood that the $2.3M loan was not the major funds in the project, which is unusual for this loan product.  The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act - Tax Credit Assistance Program Funds came in to the project after closing and needed to be covered by a temporary loan from the URA.  In summary, the Pittsburgh HUD office, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Home Loan Bank, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh and the local politicians all pulled together to make this project a reality.  The collaborative effort was tremendous and is a great example of what the Pittsburgh region is capable of once the inertia was great enough to move forward from the vision of a local community organization to the development and housing professionals who could make this large Community Revitalizing effort a reality.