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Grant helps underwrite new downtown housing

Date: 10/26/2011

Oct. 26, 201

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

CHICOPEE — The city’s downtown housing stock will be receiving a boost with the addition of 134 units of housing at Ames Privilege.

The Patrick Administration announced last week that HallKeen, which operates the housing complex in the former Ames manufacturing site, would receive $882,098 in state and federal low-income housing tax credits and $1 million in Department of Housing and Community Development housing subsidies for the rehabilitation and new construction of the units.

The new housing will be targeted for mixed-income family housing and will also include some units reserved for “extremely low-income” households.

“I am proud to support public-private partnerships that advance construction projects across Massachusetts, put people to work and contribute to the economic vitality of our communities. We want Massachusetts to be a place where people put down roots, raise their families and do business, and that’s why expanding affordable housing opportunities remains a top priority,” Gov. Deval Patrick said.

“That’s huge,” Mayor Michael Bissonnette said of the news about Ames.

The renovation is expected to create 74 construction jobs.

Bissonnette said the new apartments would be created in part of the factory complex that had never been built out due to rotten wood. He said new housing units would “help restore the residences in downtown.”

Bissonnette provided an update the progress on the other housing complex underway in the city: the conversion of the top floor of the Cabotville complex into condominiums by developer Joshua Guttman.

The mayor said he has had several meetings with Guttman and the city and the developer are in a dispute about Guttman’s resistance to comply will fire safety standards.

“The city is unwilling to write him a blank check to do what he wants,” Bissonnette said.

Guttman had successfully sought a waiver about the need to have a firewall, but Bissonnette said he wants additional concessions.

“I think he understands now there is a limit to what we’re going to do,” Bissonnette said.

He added, “I’d like to see the project go forward. It’s a very nice addition to downtown.”

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