A package of apartment buildings that includes the venerable Red Jacket at Main and Allen street is being sold. Brett Fitzpatrick and Aaron Siegel are buying 13 buildings throughout the city from a partnership that goes by the name Braco I. The properties include a total of 295 Section 8 apartments, many in historic buildings.
The pending $16.5 million deal includes properties at 12 Allen Street (Red Jacket, above), 87 Mariner Street, 87 Whitney Place, 231 West Avenue, 361-77 Busti Avenue, 105-109 Hudson Street, 279-281 Niagara Street, 76 Grant Street, 346 & 354 Franklin Street, and 333 Linwood Avenue.
279-81 Niagara Street
The buyers plan renovations to the properties including upgrades to the commercial space at the Red Jacket.
Conversion of any of the properties to market rate housing is a process. Displaced renters may be eligible for other relocation assistance including relocation payments for moving expenses and replacement housing payments for the increased costs of renting or purchasing a comparable replacement dwelling. The Buffalo News has the rundown:
All of the units currently have Section 8 housing assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and plans call for the buildings to remain as subsidized affordable housing under HUD.
Sixty percent of the units – 177 apartments – are expected to be reserved for households with incomes at or below 50 percent of the area median income. The Buffalo-Niagara Falls area median is $50,269. The remaining 118 units will be for households earning no more than 60 percent of the area median. The Linwood Apartments are for senior citizens.
So any redevelopment would be complicated by having to ensure that residents don’t lose access to their lower-cost living, as required by the federal agency.
Last October, Siegel and Fitzpatrick’s Allentown Preservation Manager, LLC was approved for $27 million in tax exempt housing revenue bonds by the NYS Housing Finance Agency. The funding is used for the financing, refinancing, acquisition, construction and/or rehabilitation of the multifamily residential projects.
Bidding for the restoration work was conducted earlier this year. Stieglitz Snyder Architecture prepared the renovation plans.
76 Grant Street