Construction Kicks Off on $14.5M Affordable Seniors Housing Project in Baltimore Area

Brooklyn Park, Md.–In an effort to help answer the growing call for affordable seniors housing, Enterprise Homes Inc. is commencing construction of The Greens at Hammonds Lane, a 90-unit apartment community in Brooklyn Park, Md., just five miles outside of Baltimore.

Marketed for seniors with low- to moderate-income levels, Greens at Hammonds will occupy 4.1 acres on the 600-block of Hammonds Lane in Anne Arundel County. Grimm + Parker Architects Inc. designed the four-story building, which will offer amenities to promote activity among residents, including a community room, a library and cyber café, a television lounge and sports bar, an activity room and a fitness center. The property, an environmentally friendly development with a focus on energy efficiency and raw materials conservation, will also feature a quarter-mile long walking path.

“Affordable seniors housing is essential to our communities, and as the population gets older, the need for housing is greater,” Chickie Grayson, president and CEO of Enterprise Homes, tells MHN. “A lot of seniors are living in naturally occurring seniors housing–staying in their homes or renting traditional apartments–so they are living within the confines of housing that is inaccessible for daily living and that does not have a community. With developments like Greens at Hammonds, we’re giving people a new lease on life. We’re giving them the opportunity to have a community with services and activities, which they wouldn’t get if they were living in houses or in garden apartments.”

Enterprise Homes, which has been developing affordable homes and raising and investing equity for such projects for the last 25 years, managed to cull financing for Greens at Hammonds from a bevy of sources. The Columbia, Md.-based developer was able to secure debt and equity from Capital One. Additionally, Anne Arundel County HOME Funds were provided through Arundel Community Development Services, and the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development administered a Multifamily Energy Efficiency and Housing Affordability grant. The project also benefited from the syndication of tax credit equity through Enterprise Community Investment Inc.

While financing is indeed in place for Greens at Hammonds, achieving it was no simple feat. Despite Enterprise Homes’ experience and well-respected reputation in the affordable housing industry, the company was unable to escape the financial challenges presented by the credit crunch and the economic crisis. “Putting together financing was very difficult and I think the stimulus really helped to make the financing possible,” Grayson says. “Everybody says the stimulus didn’t work but in affordable housing, it’s been incredibly important.”

Greens at Hammonds’ doors are on track to open to residents in the summer of 2011.