Nonprofit Developer Plans $235M Housing Project
Date Posted: December 19, 2023
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, Organizations, Regionalism,
From St. Louis Business Journal: A nonprofit developer plans about $235 million of housing projects in north St. Louis, centered around Fairground Park.
Tabernacle Community Development Corp., a community development organization based in St. Louis and founded in 2014, is seeking tax incentives to build two phases of the development, called The Village STL, according to the project website. The phases are on separate sides of the north St. Louis park, touching the O’Fallon, JeffVanderLou and Fairgrounds neighborhoods, according to a rendering on the organization’s website.
The project’s two phases were approved Tuesday for incentives from the city’s urban renewal board, the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority. The first $45.2 million phase will have 63 residential units for sale and 111 residential units for rent, with about 70% of those coming through rehabs, a representative of Tabernacle CDC said at the meeting.
The second plan, given a cost of $191 million in city documents, would build 75 residential units for sale and 466 units for rent, for a total of 138 units for sale and 577 units for rent, a spokeswoman for LCRA said. An earlier plan, filed in 2020, would have built 91 homes.
The Tabernacle CDC is the community development arm of The Tabernacle church in north St. Louis, led by Pastor Andre Alexander.
Construction is already underway on part of the project from Tabernacle, the $10 million Hebert Homes project in the 3600 and 3700 blocks of Hebert Street, which already has 27 for-sale homes, 15 new builds and 12 rehabs, underway, Alexander said at the meeting Tuesday. Financing for that project is coming from the city’s revolving loan fund and a private family foundation, Alexander said. The eight rental units already under renovation in the area are funded by private family foundations, he said. Tabernacle also said the project has about $20 million in patient capital through an unnamed source, which will finish the first phase and carry over to the second phase.