Chicago firm plans to buy Lattitude Five25, demolish troubled Near East Side towers

The Latitude Five25 apartment towers are in contract to a company that plans to replace the troubled complex with an affordable housing complex with nearly 400 apartments with the potential to more than double that number.

Long known as Sawyer Towers, the Near East Side housing towers were evacuated over Christmas 2022 after being deemed uninhabitable. The property, owned by the New Jersey firm Paxe Latitude , was put into receivership and listed for sale .

Last week, the investment management firm Nuveen signed a contract to buy the 7-acre complex for $7 million, said Dana Milligan, one of the founders of New Perspective Asset Management, the Dublin company appointed receiver for the property .

"They're planning to tear them down, and they've got a plan that is going to bring in a lot of housing," Milligan said. "It's a big plan for that plot of land. ... They described it as generational housing, for families living together with aging parents, and it will be affordable."

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What would replace the towers?

A spokesperson for Nuveen, which is a Chicago-based division of the financial planning company TIAA, declined to comment. But Nuveen's affordable housing arm Paths Development laid out its plan in a bid package for the property.

The plan calls for replacing the towers with one five-story central apartment building surrounded by six three-story "garden" apartment buildings. In total, the complex would include 393 apartments. The central building's 177 apartments would be targeted to seniors and to multi-generational families.

Rents would be targeted at those making no more than 60% of the area median income. Projected rents would be $1,041 for a studio unit, $1,109 for a one-bedroom, $1,327 for a two-bedroom and $1,528 for a three-bedroom.

In addition to the apartments themselves, the plan includes 7,000 square feet of shared community amenity spaces, 110,000 square feet of open space including a playground, basketball court and seating areas, and 295 parking spaces.

"We propose to fully recreate and reimagine this site, replacing the existing outmoded towers with a new community of 100% affordable housing," Paths wrote in its proposal. "Maintaining the number of apartments, we propose to redevelop the site at a density that is appropriate and contextual for the neighborhood, leaving behind outdated architecture in favor of an embrace of the modern urban design and community development best practices."

The total project cost is estimated at $147 million, including the $7 million acquisition costs.

Once completed, Paths said it plans to pursue a second phase that would include the site of the former school to the south, on Sawyer Boulevard, that would "more than double the number of residential units included in the first phase."

Paths said it hopes to start demolishing the towers the first of the next year and start construction of the new buildings in the summer of 2026, with the goal of opening the new complex in 2028.

The development firm said it decided against renovating the current towers for four reasons: their deteriorated condition; the extensive renovation cost, which was nearly as high as new construction ($222 a square foot vs. $225 a square foot for new); the quality of the new construction compared to old; and the broader market appeal of new construction compared to the existing units, which have irregular floorplans, small windows and low ceilings.

"Paths believes strongly that the units will need to be very high quality to compete on the market, even at discounted rents. Given those challenging conditions, this will be much more effectively achieved as new construction versus renovation," the company wrote.

Why was Nuveen's bid chosen?

Milligan said the Columbus real-estate firm The Robert Weiler Co., which listed the Latitude property, received "a lot of tire-kickers and four offers," one of which was not credible.

"Two others were very good offers, but Nuveen came with plans all ready, drawings, everything ready to do. They were so much more prepared than the other two, who could have done it too; they were qualified."

Nuveen was also the highest bidder and the only one that planned to tear down the towers, "which in my opinion, is the only way to take care of the problem," Milligan said.

Skip Weiler, president of The Robert Weiler Co., agreed that demolition is best for the site.

"It’s always easier to start from scratch," he said.

Weiler and Milligan noted that the deal isn't final. The sale must be approved by the court and the city.

"It’s not a typical sale, not even with a receiver, because the city is involved," Weiler said. "We have to make sure this one performs different things; it's not just economics."

But, Weiler added, "we’re going down the right path."

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A troubled history

Demolition would bring a close to the long and often troubled history of the towers, which have loomed over Interstate 670 for nearly six decades.

The 15-story towers, with their distinctive pyramid caps, opened in 1965 under the name Bolivar Arms. Complaints quickly started about crime, loitering, lack of recreation areas, elevator issues, vandalism and maintenance problems.

Due to the challenges, the property was converted by the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority to senior housing and, in 1969, renamed W. Wesley Sawyer Manor, or Sawyer Towers for short.

The complex, which was also known as Skyview Towers, declined for years before being acquired in 2021 by Paxe Latitude and taking on the new name Latitude Five25.

Under the firm's ownership, the property continued to deteriorate, with tenants complaining of a lack of heat, air conditioning and hot water, power outages, elevator regulars, and rats, roaches and other issues. Maintenance problems were compounded by crime, which led Columbus Police to respond to about 1,000 calls to the property in recent years.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Chicago firm plans to buy Lattitude Five25, demolish troubled Near East Side towers