Provided RHG Services

Development Partner of Public Agencies

Summary

RHG partnered with local Michigan firms, led by the Slavik Company, to form Scripps Park Associates (SPA), a team of partners and consultants selected by the Detroit Housing Commission (DHC) to redevelop its 47-acre Jeffries West Homes project, since renamed Woodbridge Estates, and a surrounding 3-mile impact area in central Detroit.

RHG has:

  • Written the response to the DHC (Detroit Housing Commission) Developer RFQ
  • Helped guide the project through the entire approval process
  • Worked to completely revise the outdated HOPE VI Revitalization Plan and prepared a new marketing study
  • Led members of a team that successfully negotiated the Master Developer Agreement, Regulatory and Operating Agreement, all mixed-finance documents, and land contracts with the DHC and the City of Detroit and ensured compliance with all HUD requirements
  • Helped obtain unanimous approval from the DHC, the City Council and HUD

The HOPE VI project at Woodbridge is funded with $25.4 million in HOPE VI funds and consists of a mixed-income, mixed-use, mixed-ownership development employing mixed-finance techniques predicated on market forces. It is the most environmentally integrated HOPE VI project, with rental housing ranging from public housing to fair market, and home ownership ranging from affordable to fair market condos and single family dwellings.

The project will result in $75 to $100 million of development and housing, as well as community and retail facilities, on- and off-site.

The first five phases of the project are closed, with tax credits awarded for each. Most of the new units are now occupied, consisting of:

  • 281 rental units, ranging from ACC, LIHTC to market rate
  • 101 on-site home ownership units, of which 37 are affordable

It also includes 100 assisted living senior units and 297 renovated public housing senior units in three towers managed by our SPA property management joint venture.

In addition, this group entered into an Amended MDA in late 2007, with DHC covering the demolition and revitalization of the adjacent very depressed Jeffries East site that will contain 180 mixed-finance units. This development is now called Cornerstone Estates. We completed the demolition and are planning for a construction start in the summer of 2009.

Architect: Abraham Kadushin Associates Architects and Planners of Ann Arbor, MI

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