Michaels Organization Taps Sweeney for Michaels Military Housing
The Michaels Organization has named Bill Sweeney as director of facilities management for Prestige Renovations, one of the six companies that comprise Michaels. In his new job, Sweeney will oversee facilities management and renovations at the five military installations where Michaels Military Housing is currently developing and managing family housing under the Department of Defense's housing privatization program.
Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
Bill Sweeney
Marlton, NJ–The Michaels Organization has named Bill Sweeney (pictured) Â as director of facilities management for Prestige Renovations, one of the six companies that comprise Michaels. In his new job, Sweeney will oversee facilities management and renovations at the five military installations where Michaels Military Housing is currently developing and managing family housing under the Department of Defense’s housing privatization program.
Before joining New Jersey-based Michaels, which specializes in affordable, mixed-income, and military housing, Sweeney held a similar position with Balfour Beatty Communities (formerly GMH Military Housing). He also previously served as a renovation facility manager for housing privatization at Fort Carson, Colo.
Sweeney will be based at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, where Michaels Military Housing is currently building more than 200 new homes and a community center for military personnel and their families. The homes are part of two on-fort neighborhoods called Gatewood and DeAnza, which resemble civilian residential communities more than they do the old image of military housing.
Military housing privatization began under the National Defense Authorization Act on 1996, with the goal of improving the poor condition of Defense Department-owned housing, as well as dealing with shortages of affordable private housing near military facilities. The program allows private developers such as Michaels Military Housing to own, operate and generally assume responsibility for military family housing.
Michaels has also named Joseph J. Chambers as a new development officer. He will work on several projects that Michaels Development Co. has under way in Florida, including a new HOPE VI development in Sanford. HOPE VI is a Department of Housing and Urban Development program to redevelop public housing using New Urbanist guidelines.
Chambers comes to Michaels with experience working as a developer with several housing authorities in Florida and as a consultant to nonprofit organizations looking for development partners on affordable housing projects using Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
