CNE President and CEO Martina Guilfoil speaks at Tuesday's groundbreaking for the Mai Bell apartment complex.Highland Park is about to get its largest investment in 50 years.
Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE), a nonprofit organization formed to promote housing and neighborhood redevelopment, broke ground Tuesday morning on the "Mai Bell," a $4.7 million, 49-unit apartment complex in Highland Park that's named after the late Mai Bell Hurley, who was one of CNE's founders, a patron of the arts and the first woman elected to the Chattanooga City Council.
"We just thought there was no better way to honor her legacy," CNE President Martina Guilfoil said of Hurley, who was an advocate for affordable housing.
The three-story apartment complex at the corner of Bailey Avenue and South Hawthorne Street should be finished by the spring of 2017. It will have a commercial space on the ground floor and 11 affordable units, CNE says, with rents that will start at $481 per month for a one-bedroom apartment, $652 for a two-bedroom and $868 for a three-bedroom.
Affordable housing is important to build in Highland Park, said Guilfoil, since new houses being built there cost $200,000 and above. That's a change, she said, from when CNE bought land in the neighborhood from Tennessee Temple University.
"When we came in here and bought this land two years ago, there was no private investment happening in Highland Park," Guilfoil said.
It's been so long since any large project has been built in Highland Park, she said, that the new apartment building will be assessed at $3 million, even though it costs $4.7 million to build.
Financing is being provided by First Tennessee Bank. The project is funded through a $443,500 grant from the city of Chattanooga's HOME funds, a $200,000 grant from First Tennessee Bank, a $100,000 grant from NeighborWorks America and $734,000 in CNE equity, or money CNE could be using for other things, such as home loans.
"The $734,000 in equity is a lot of money to put in a project," Guilfoil said of CNE's contribution, as she thanked CNE board members at the ground-breaking ceremony.
Praise for the affordable housing at Mai Bell apartments came from Emerson Burch, president of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association, who said the apartments will allow people such as food-service workers to move in.
"Where are the servers going to live? Where are the cafe workers going to live?" Burch said he asks himself, holding up the take-out coffee he was drinking. "[Cafes] - that's where I spend all my time."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.