Turning former school into housing for elderly, disabled

Shelby Weaver Splain has been going back to school a lot these days.

Splain is director of preservation services for the Keystone Preservation Group in Doylestown.

The school is Springside Elementary in Burlington Township, which is being converted to affordable rental housing for the elderly and disabled by MEND, a Moorestown-based nonprofit, as a joint venture with Conifer Realty L.L.C., a Rochester, N.Y.-based for-profit that manages 11,000 units nationwide.

The $18 million project will convert the former school to 32 rental apartments, while an addition at the rear of the building will have 43 more, said MEND president Matthew Reilly.

The addition, designed to complement the building by Kitchen & Associates of Collingswood, will have solar roof panels not permitted on the school, but they will be "flat and not visible," he said.

Low- and moderate-income tenants will include those ages 55 and older who are seeking to live independently; "frail" elderly 62 years and older; and adults 18 and older supported by the Drenk Behavioral Mental Health Center, Reilly said.

So far, MEND has received 125 applications. "This is not Section 8 housing, and there are no subsidies," Reilly said, adding that applicants must prove they can pay from $200 per month for a one-bedroom for a Drenk client to $900 for one of the few two-bedroom units.

Splain's job is to guarantee the work conforms to state and federal historical guidelines.

Reilly said the $13.9 million in low-income tax credits and the $1.7 million in historical credits make such large affordable-housing projects possible.

Red Stone Equity Partners, headquartered in Cleveland, syndicated the credits. TD Bank, which provided the $10.5 million construction loan, invested in the credits, which means "it owns 99.9 percent of the project," said Reilly, who worked for First Fidelity/First Union/Wachovia Bank for 13 years.

"I make sure the historic elements are left in place," Splain said, acknowledging that the need to meet today's energy-efficiency standards often makes the work, and her job, all the more difficult.

For example, the school's all-purpose room has been stripped of nearly all its woodwork, while project manager Henry Fey, of Conifer LeChase in Mount Laurel, and subcontractor Dominic DeSantis, of Gary F. Gardner Inc.in Medford, determine the best way to insulate the walls while meeting the historical guidelines.

Each piece of woodwork has been labeled so it can be reassembled when the work is finished.

"Some of the brick on the facade of the [1915] building had rotted," Fey said, adding that repointing of all the brick on that building and the 1927 and 1952 additions was done.

"Parts of the stone bandwork along the building also had to be removed and replaced," he said.

Splain said her goal was to balance the needs of the 83,000-square-foot project with the requirements of all the agencies involved. When it is completed in December, she wants it to be "a highly energy-efficient fit into a historic envelope."

The three-story school was closed in 2007 after being deemed functionally obsolete and plagued with asbestos issues, Reilly said.

MEND, formed 44 years ago by the nine Moorestown churches that remain its core, has been expanding to other areas of Burlington County since 2003, Splain said.

The organization owns and manages 490 senior and family housing units in Delanco, Evesham, Deptford, and Medford, as well as Moorestown.

This project, and 53 units in Florence, will bring MEND's total to 618, said Reilly, who joined the organization in 2001.

Springside School was an opportunity MEND had sought, and was a win-win situation for the township and the school district.

The district tried to sell the school for commercial use but had no takers, so officials were considering demolishing the building.

In 2011, MEND approached the town about acquiring the school.

"The town knew it had an affordable-housing obligation under [the] Mount Laurel [decision]. If we did 74 units, it would take care of it," Reilly said.

Burlington Township paid the school district $250,000 from municipal housing trust funds for the building, meaning "at the end of the day, they avoided a costly demolition," Reilly said.

"We applied for tax credits last summer and were one of 18 proposals of about 60 statewide receiving them," Reilly said.

When MEND received the tax credits, the township sold the organization the building for $1.

Site work began in November, with Sandy throwing the project its first curveball, knocking out power along Mount Holly Road in front of the school, Fey said.

The addition was started about Jan. 1, he said, adding that the project was "coming together" as planned.

Compared with a lot of affordable-housing projects, this one appears relatively trouble-free.

"The township was cooperative, and when the tax credits were approved, everything fell into place," Reilly said.

"They'd seen us around - in Moorestown, Evesham, and Medford," he said. "We have a track record for quality."

Source: Philly.com