Store owner, non-profit combine to create 6 new apartments

WORCESTER --- As Belia Jimenez tells it, one day about seven years ago, she and her mother Maria drove north from New York City and saw potential in the small brick commercial buildings and homes nestled together in Worcester’s neighborhoods. It had the city feel that they had grown used to since moving from the Dominican Republic, without the overbearing hustle and bustle of the Big Apple.

They went back to New York and urged the family to think about investing in Worcester. Pretty soon, the family bought a four-story brick building with a grocery store on the first floor and her brother Eddie moved his family to Worcester to run the business.

Their dreaming didn’t stop there. Eddie kept wondering how he could turn the long-vacant floors above his market into apartments. Then he noticed that neighborhood non-profit Worcester Common Ground was rehabilitating buildings like his into housing. He sought their advice and pretty soon a partnership was born.

Belia and Eddie Jimenez recalled these days proudly earlier this month as they stood together with their family and listened as city and state officials congratulated them and Worcester Common Ground for creating six affordable rental apartments above Eddie’s Market on Pleasant Street in the Piedmont section of Worcester.

“Buildings like these have their challenges, but it’s a wonderful thing when they are brought back to life,” said Michael O’Brien, Worcester’s city manager. “These aren’t just apartments. They are homes for families.”

The apartments at Eddie’s Market are geared for families, as five are -three-bedroom units (the other is a one-bedroom). Three will be rented to households making no more than 60 percent of median income ($43,020 for a family of four) and three will be rented to households making no more than 50 percent of median income ($35,850 for a family of four).

“What I like about this is that the apartments are new, but the building has retained the character of the neighborhood,” said Belia Jimenez.

Worcester Common Ground is no stranger to turning long-vacant properties into housing, having previously turned two abandoned homes at 98 and 102 Austin St. into nine affordable apartments and a similar brick building on 133 Chandler Street into five affordable apartments. In call three cases, MHP provided the permanent financing. For Eddie's Market, MHP is providing $416,000 in long-term first-mortgage financing and a $450,000 deferred payment second mortgage. Eddie's Market received additional funding from TD Banknorth, the city of Worcester, the state's Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Community Econonic Development Assistance Corp.

“Worcester Common Ground knows what it takes to turn neglected properties into assets for the neighborhood,” said Wendy Hanna Cohen, MHP’s deputy director of lending. “They combine a good sense of what the neighborhood needs with the technical expertise needed to manage the construction and the building after the project is done.”

“These projects are challenging,” said Worcester Common Ground Executive Director Steve Patton at the grand opening event on December 1. “That’s one reason why we like working with MHP. They are experienced and flexible on smaller affordable housing efforts like this one.”