It was a proud day for Buffalo yesterday, when brothers Ken and Larry Regan of Regan Development unveiled their coup, a beautifully restored Packard Automobile showroom and factory (circa 1926), transformed into 40 living units and an 8.000 square foot, ground floor commercial space.
View image
The newly refurbished historic building at 1325 Main (at Riley) signifies a highly successful collective effort between the City of Buffalo, the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), Resetarits Construction, Hamilton Houston and Lownie Architects and, of course, the Regans, who say the experience of doing business here was so pleasant that they may look for more local projects.
The DHCR was responsible for just over $2M in financing through tax credits and NYS Housing Trust Fund dollars, while another $900K came from city housing funds in this overall $10M conversion.
The ground floor is going to be occupied by a commercial tenant, and at this time, an unnamed not-for-profit looks as though it may fill the space. All of the 40 apartments are based on maximum income levels of tenants, with several already in occupancy. Rent is calculated just prior to signing a lease, but a 624 - 967 sq.ft.1-bedroom (below) can go from $287 - $650 depending on size and income, $348 to $800 for a 709 to 940 sq. ft. 2-bedroom, and $800 for a 1,391 to 1,663 sq ft. 3-bedroom.
The Packard Building was recently added to the National Register List of Historic Places, and the Regans went to great lengths to keep historic details of the building, not the least of which is the beautiful tile of the showroom floor. Going forward, any office space that will be built out will have to be done without anchoring to the original floor. The archway (seen below), is where the Packard automobiles were driven from the factory space at the rear of the building, through the long corridor and into the showroom. All of the ceilings throughout the building have been left exposed in order to keep the authentic original feel of the building. In short, the original character of the building was retained as much as possible.
DHCR Commissioner Deborah Van Amerongen, who had so much to do with the funding and development of the mixed use building said that it's a difficult thing to make historic preservation, green development and affordable housing work - and she praised the Regan brothers for accomplishing all three of those objectives in this project.
(Pictured above: Larry Regan, Councilman Brian Davis, Mayor Byron Brown, Deborah Van Amerongen and Rev, Stenhouse.)
Along with high praise for Regan Development, Mayor Brown lauded the work of the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency and the Office of Strategic Planning in helping to bring this development to fruition. He reminded those gathered that this area of Mid-town Buffalo has become highly desirable, especially with Artspace as an anchor, and said that there is a national waiting list of people wanting to live in Artspace Buffalo.
(Hamilton Houston and Lownie's Jeff Coutch, Ken Regan, HHL's Matthew Meier and Larry Regan.)
Larry Regan said that the Division of Housing for the State of New York is the national leader in affordable housing and he thanked Commisioner Van Amerongen and her assistant, Sean Fitzgerald for working so diligently on this project. It should also be noted that in completing the project, the Regans met and surpassed requirements for the use of minority and women owned businesses.
Find out more about rentals and income requirements for occupancy of the Packard Apartments here.
![[XML element 'prod_name_5' contains multiple values]](http://store.buffalorising.com/Imgs/Product_Imgs/small/BestOfBuffaloBasket_S.jpg)
$10 million project / 40 units = $250k p/unit. Yikes!
Well, in the Subsidized Housing Hall Of Fame, there now is a luxury condo tower in Crown Heights in NYC that has been leased to an agency that houses the homeless at a cost of $2700 per month per unit. The landlord is clearly ecstatic to be able to continue making his mortgage payments and not lose his building to the banks, while the Bloomberg Administration can finally crow about helping the homeless (after years of lackluster leadership on the subject while he allowed condo towers to sprout everywhere). So this project just seems all the more de rigeur. In any event, it looks great!