Wartburg Puts Financing in Place for Affordable Seniors Housing
Wartburg Adult Care Community has completed the financing for Friedrichs Residence, a four-story building with 61 affordable senior apartments on a 34-acre site in Mt. Vernon, N.Y.
By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
Mt. Vernon, N.Y.—Wartburg Adult Care Community has completed the financing for Friedrichs Residence, a four-story building with 61 affordable senior apartments on a 34-acre site in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. As par for the course for affordable housing, paying for its development is a complex activity involving a number of entities.
Much of the financing is from public sources. The New York State Housing Finance Agency (HFA) issued $8.6 million in tax-exempt bonds as part of the federal New Issue Bond Program. HFA will also provide a $500,000 subsidy loan as part of the project’s financial sources.
Private entities played a part as well. Enterprise Community Investment. a Maryland-based a provider of development capital for affordable housing, is providing tax-credit equity investment, while Bank of America is providing the letter of credit for the bond issuance’s construction period. The building will be named to honor Wartburg benefactors Juanita E. and Arthur M. Friedrichs, whose $1 million bequest provided the project’s initial funding.
The residencies will be part of the larger Wartburg Adult Care Community, a nonprofit Lutheran organization that offers residential and health care facilities for older adults (Lutheran or not), including skilled nursing care, rehabilitation, Alzheimer’s and dementia care, assisted and independent living, adult day services, home care, memory care and pastoral care. In October, the Wartburg received a $27.5 million New York state HEAL NY grant to improve long-term care services and develop community-based alternatives to traditional nursing home care for older New Yorkers.
The first stage in the Friedrichs Residence project will be the demolition of an existing outpatient clinic building. Groundbreaking for the residence is anticipated to take place in mid-January and construction is scheduled to be completed in about a year.
Mount Vernon is a near suburb of New York City, bordering the Bronx as well as the city of Yonkers. According to Ryan Herchenroether, the Wartburg’s director of planning, southern Westchester County has a higher concentration of seniors than the county, state, or national averages, so the demand for the residencies will be considerable.
