Bailey Residents Receptive to Capital Area Housing Partnership Proposal for Bailey Community Center

Above: Image from yesterday's presentation by Capital Area Housing Partnership

About four dozen East Lansing residents, mostly from the Bailey neighborhood, attended a meeting at the Bailey Community Center yesterday to hear the Capital Area Housing Partnership (CAHP) present plans for repurposing the building. People posed questions about various aspects of the early version of the plans, but no one raised serious objections and several residents made a point of expressing their support for the proposal.

Mark Meadows, chair of the Board of the Capital Area Housing Partnership and a long-time resident of the Bailey community, gave an overview of the plan and identified the partners involved. (See the presentation by clicking here.)

The proposed project includes 26 one- and two-bedroom apartments for affordable senior housing (for people 55 and over with an income of 60% or less of the median income in Ingham County) on two upper floors with a daycare center, low-traffic commercial space, and community spaces on the first floor. The division between commercial and community space on the first floor has yet to be worked out, although intended uses on this floor include maintaining the current gym and at least one other room as public space and providing office space for CAHP.

CAHP, a non-profit organization founded in East Lansing in 1992, plans to partner on this project with PK Development Group, an Okemos-based for-profit firm that specializes in building and managing affordable housing. A childcare provider will also be a partner; Ann Arbor-based Gretchen’s House, whose owner Gretchen Preston attended the two recent community discussions about the Center, is in conversation with CAHP, but it has not made a commitment to operate at this location. Hooker DeJong is the chosen architect, and Great Lakes Capital Fund would be the limited partner that would be the Tax Credit Syndicator.

CAHP and the PK developers estimate that the project will cost $8.6 million. This would include all renovation of the building, above-ground construction, and infrastructure improvements. CAHP is not seeking to purchase the Bailey Community Center building; rather, it plans to negotiate a 45- to 49-year lease with the City of East Lansing, which would retain ownership of the building. The project would make no changes to the green space portion of Bailey Park; the City would continue to be responsible for this area.

When a resident asked about the financial viability of rehabbing the building, given its age and current condition, Meadows responded that he had had the same question. However, the proposed project is eligible for two financing programs that would not be available to a private developer for building market-rate housing: a federal historic preservation incentive program administered by the National Park Service and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program administered by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). With these sources of financing, Meadows and the PK Development Group believe that the project is financially possible.

Because the Bailey Community Center would not be sold to a private owner under this proposal, it would not bring in property taxes to the City. Instead, CAHP would pay a “Payment in Lieu of Taxes” (PILOT) of a percent (perhaps 5%) of collected rents. CAHP could also pay a service charge to the City for fire and safety services. Whether the lease would involve a significant payment has yet to be explored with the City.

The historic preservation incentive program requires that the appearance of the exterior of the historic building be maintained, along with certain constraints on changes to the interior. Also, any later addition to the original building could not “mimic” the appearance of the historic building; additions would need to have a different exterior design. The site plan that was presented calls for tearing down the one-floor addition pointing East, where the daycare program currently operates, and replacing it with a three-story extension that would again house a daycare program on the first floor, along with some other uses, and have residential units on the second and third floors.

Meadows shared a timeline for the project that includes submitting an application for the historic preservation program by an October 1 deadline. This would require considerable action by City government between now and then, including negotiating a lease agreement, changing the zoning of the property, review of the site plan and a Special Use Permit (SUP) by the Planning Commission, and approval of the site plan and SUP by City Council. The Wednesday evening meeting was the first step in this process, namely meeting with nearby residents to share plans and hear their views.

CAHP hopes for speedy consideration not only because of the timing of grant programs but also in order to avoid the Bailey building remaining vacant for a long period once the City closes its doors in September – a concern that many nearby residents share.

The next steps are not immediately clear. The City Council voted unanimously in January to hold a “strategic doing” consultation with the community, which is designed to plan how to achieve an agreed-up objective. Because there was no unified view of the future use of this property, the City instead held the two sessions on April 27 and May 4 to discuss visions and desires for this property.

Several participants in the meeting convened by CAHP commented that the CAHP proposal incorporates many uses that had considerable support by the end of the May 4^th City-organized discussion session. These include: housing a well-run childcare program, affordable senior housing, maintaining public spaces for multiple uses, use by small non-profit or profit-making businesses, and retaining City ownership of the building.

City staff had previously suggested using a Request for Proposals (RFP) process to allow multiple people to put forward proposals. Three groups had expressed a possible interest: CAHP, Gretchen’s House, and the Cole Academy charter school. The proposal from CAHP presented on Wednesday could include Gretchen’s House, which has said it is not interested in putting forward a proposal for the entire building.

According to an East Lansing resident who attended the Cole Academy’s Town Hall at the Eagle Eye Golf Club on April 30, Cole Academy’s principal Brian Shaughnessy said they currently are interested in opening a second charter elementary school in Northwest East Lansing, shifting their previous focus from the Bailey School building. Therefore, an RFP process may not be pursued given the consonance of the CAHP proposal with views expressed by East Lansing community members on May 4 and Bailey neighborhood residents on May 13.

UPDATE, May 14, 7:15 pm: The first line in the article was changed from "About two dozen East Lansing residents" to "About four dozen" because according to Meadows, members of CAHP counted 47 attendees at the meeting.