A Maryland developer of affordable housing has received $2.3 million in state funding to acquire and renovate Smithfield’s Jersey Park Apartments on West Main Street.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on July 10 that the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development had awarded Affordable and Special Needs Housing funds to Salisbury-based Green Street Housing for Jersey Park, an 80-unit housing complex built in 1981.
Jersey Park was one of 14 housing projects selected across the state to receive subsidies out of 55 applications to the state-administered ASNH program, which affords developers the opportunity to apply for competitively awarded federal and non-federal funds twice per year.
Chase Powell, director of development for Green Street, said his company is planning extensive interior and exterior renovations including replacing the roofs on the 10 two-story apartment buildings, replacing their siding and windows, repaving the parking lot, and adding an outdoor recreation area. Inside, each apartment unit will receive fresh paint, new flooring, an electrical system overhaul, new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, new appliances and finishes.
“It’s going to look and feel like a new property when we’re done,” Powell said.
Eight of the units will be retrofitted as disability-accessible to comply with section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act.
All work, he said, will be built using environmentally conscious and water- and energy-efficient techniques to achieve a National Green Building Building Standard certification.
Tenants will be relocated to vacant units while renovations to theirs are underway, Powell said. Part of Green Street’s agreement with Jersey Park’s current owner, Jersey Park Apartments LLC, requires that some units be kept vacant to provide for a seamless transition for residents. Currently, Jersey Park has a 15% vacancy rate, which is by design to facilitate the renovations.
“We find it’s always a lot easier to keep folks on site,” Powell said.
Green Street is on track to close on financing and begin construction in December, which Powell said he expects to be completed sometime in 2025.
Green Street, which has developed affordable housing in multiple mid-Atlantic states since its 2008 founding, plans to combine the ASNH award with federal low-income housing tax credits through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and tax-exempt state DHCD bonds, Powell said.
Low-income housing tax credits, or LIHTCs, provide an incentive through tax breaks, which can be claimed over a 10-year period in exchange for the developer keeping some or all of the units affordable to renters earning 60% or less of the area median family income, which was $91,680 for Isle of Wight County as of 2022 according to census data.
The 80 apartments in Jersey Park are among 334 units spread across five affordable housing complexes in Smithfield, according to a HUD database of projects that have received LIHTCs.
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