Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority looks to build apartments on old Whittier, Lowell schools property

LORAIN — The Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority is not waiting for federal funds to start building affordable housing on the city's south side, its leadership said. LMHA, alongside its contracted developer TFG Housing Resources, plans to transform the former Whittier and Lowell school sites into 75 rental units dubbed the Oakwood Park development. The former Whittier Middle School, near East 32nd Street and Seneca Avenue, housed students for more than 80 years until it was demolished in 2012. Lowell Elementary, near East 32nd and Clinton Avenue, opened in the mid 1960s and was demolished in 2015. Those parcels have remained vacant — though LMHA is not the first to look at bringing housing to the site. In 2020 local developer Jon Veard announced plans for Oakwood Park Estates, 37 single-family, market-rate homes stretching between where the two schools once stood. His development company, Oakwood Park Development LLC, still owns the land, though LMHA is in talks to acquire it. The space abuts Oakwood Park to the east. While Veard's project never came to fruition, LMHA began considering the site as part of its Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant initiative, dubbed the Southside Gateway project, which stretches from East 28th to East 36th Street between Broadway and Grove Avenue. The Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant initiative focuses on revamping Southside Gardens, an aging LMHA property at East 30th and Vine Avenue, while bringing additional mixed-income rental and owner-occupied housing to the area. To help fund that redevelopment, LMHA and TFG Housing Resources have applied for a competitive 9 percent low-income housing tax credit to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC program, helps fund the construction and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing through a reduction in federal tax liability to investors. Recipients of the tax credit receive annual allotments, generally over 10 years, and LIHTC properties must house low-income tenants for at least 30 years, according to the Ohio Finance Agency's website. The tax credits help build the physical properties, Carlin explained, but it does not subsidize any rent. "We will be bringing mixed-income housing that provides not only affordable housing, but workforce and market-rate (units) as well," Carlin said. That workforce housing hopes to dovetail with developments Mayor Jack Bradley hinted at during his state of the city address Feb. 26. During his speech, Bradley said investors were looking at the former Republic Steel and National Gypsum sites. Republic Steel, one of two hulking steel mills spread across East 28th Street, has been idled since 2016. National Gypsum, on the east side, shuttered in 2008. The proposed project on the old school sites is the first phase of the Southside Gateway project, and will be the first new housing built on the city's south side in decades. The Whittier and Lowell project will blend in with the architecture of the surrounding neighborhood, LMHA officials said. Not far from it is the early action activity that recently broke ground near Southside Gardens as part of the Choice Neighborhood Initiative grant application. In late February, LMHA and city officials put shovels in the ground to mark the start of the "transformation" for South Lorain with a new $1.3 million South Lorain Community Park beside Southside Gardens. Southside Gardens is at the heart of the Community Neighborhood Initiative and the Southside Gateway project. Its 111 low-income housing units will eventually be replaced one to one. At the same time, the neighborhood will see the addition of market rate and affordable rental and owner-occupied spaces like the Whittier development. Lorain Planning and Zoning Administrator Evelisse Atkinson said the properties identified in the Southside Gateway Project have been rezoned to mixed use, which allow for multi-family housing as well as single-family, duplexes and small businesses with apartments on upper floors. The development at the old Whittier and Lowell sites still needs to secure the Planning Commission and City Council's approval to move forward. LMHA is waiting for the application window to open for a $40 milliom to $50 million implementation grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Carlin said, which will fund redevelopments throughout the southside. LMHA was awarded a $500,000 Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant in late 2022 to help come up with the plan. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.