Downtown will get housing subsidies
The city of Memphis will add roughly 200 affordable housing units in the Downtown area using the federal subsidies left after the demolition of one of the two apartment complexes formerly owned by Global Ministries Foundation.
Cleveland, Ohio-based Millenia Housing Development is planning to buy the apartments, currently in a court-appointed receivership, for $3 million, according to court notices. Millenia is expected to demolish the Warren complex and rehabilitate the Tulane complex, clearing the way for the city to divert more than $100,000 in federal subsidies to new affordable units in the Downtown, Uptown, Medical and South City districts, Memphis Chief Operations Officer Doug McGowen said Tuesday.
The plan answers the question about what will happen to the complexes following a public outcry against poor living conditions at GMF properties, first locally and then nationally, leading to the relocation of 1,000 tenants in Memphis.
“We’re not going to go out and say ‘Victory!’ because it’s not done yet,” McGowen said. But now, he added, “we have a path to success.”
The city today will publicly solicit applications for the subsidies in a process that will run the next two or three weeks, he said. The city will hire former HUD field officer John Gemmill to review and recommend candidates.
The subsidies, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development decided last year would stay in Memphis, will help avoid gentrification in the fastgrowing Downtown area, McGowen said. Both he and the administration have involved citizens in the planning for the development in the city’s core, including the Bicentennial Gateway Project anchored by a $1 billion capital investment by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The subsidies will advance that mission, he added.
“To me, that has been more satisfying than anything else,” he said of making Downtown more inclusive.
Bradley Watkins, executive director of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center and an advocate for former GMF tenants, said he is “relieved” to hear HUD will honor promises to keep the subsidies in Memphis, and “cautiously optimistic” the Downtown requirement won’t inconvenience low-income tenants. The tenants can easily plug into the Memphis Area Transit Authority bus system in Downtown, but will also have further to travel to reach jobs on the eastern side of the city.
“We’ve been fighting for this for a long time,” he said of the subsidies.
Millenia representatives didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Reach Ryan Poe at poe@commercial appeal.com or on Twitter at @ryanpoe.