A Home For All

A $40-million rehab of an Ashley River Road apartment complex may not just safeguard homes for the working poor, it may also herald a change in city policy regarding affordable housing in West Ashley.
Last year, San Diego-based The Hampstead Companies purchased the former Ashley Gardens Apartments complex. Situated on 28 acres abutting the main St. Andrews Parks and Playground facility, its 328 units had fallen into disrepair.
Of those units, the plan is to rent out 228 of them at affordable and “workforce” housing rates, targeting families making 60 percent of the median salary for a family of four, roughly $36,000 annually.
The remaining 100 units will also be rehabbed, and rented out at lower-end market levels. The purchase, aided importantly by a half-million dollar bridge loan from the City of Charleston, included an additional 100 units around the corner, which will remain Section 8 subsidized housing.
That could mean that the tide of gentrification that has dogged the peninsula may not hit as hard in West Ashley, even as efforts are made to help revitalize its commercial corridors.
Forty-plus years of use had not been kind to the complex, since dubbed Palmilla [pol-mee-a].
Many of the units were found to be “uninhabitable” by the company, which specializes in affordable housing on both coasts.
These days, as many as 50 construction workers and subcontractors buzz about the main site.  Senior project manager Ryan Kucich has moved to the area from California to oversee the renovations.
Nothing sits still for long at Palmilla. This day, workers grab from pallets of vinyl flooring and “cultured marble” countertops for installation. The staccato of air guns hammering in new sills and entranceways fills the air.
Window air-conditioning units list precariously, waiting to be disposed of, as the entire property will be converted to central heat and air.  Entire windows are removed and are being replaced with energy efficient ones.
Only a pile of cement chunks collect dust as workers hammer in wooden forms all over the place for new sidewalks.
Sitting in a renovated model, replete with plank flooring all the amenities of a “full-market” apartment, Kucich says while his company is in this business for a profit, they also see the tangible benefits this kind of effort results in.
It was that dedication, and a history dating back decades, that attracted the city to helping re-launch the complex, according to Geona Shaw Johnson, the municipal director of housing and community development.
“[Hampstead] had been involved for at least 15 years in affordable housing training for the federal Housing and Urban Development,” said Johnson.
Johnson said Hampstead had contacted the city with its interest in the project as far back as 2008.
Kucich said market realities, as well as the Great Recession, put the company’s plans on hold until last year, when it purchased the complex.
Kucich said the company would never have been able to buy what has become Palmilla without the city’s loan, even though it was only for about one-tenth of the purchase amount.
He said that cash put up by the partners that control Hampstead wasn’t enough, not even with federal affordable housing tax credits, to get the deal done. The city’s involvement was crucial, according to Kucich.
Johnson said the city wanted to help maintain the working poor’s place in West Ashley, but wasn’t going to just hand over the money. Unlike in past affordable housing deals, where the city basically gave out grants, this loan is required to be paid back, and at 4-percent interest — a higher rate than banks are currently giving out. Roughly 100 units have remained rented, with residents shuffling between finished units as their units were rehabbed.
George Brown wished he could have stayed. “But they tore down my unit to make way for the rec center,” Brown said as he replaced the spark plugs in his car parked in the complex.
Kucich said two buildings were demolished to make way for a community building, replete with gathering rooms, a weight room, and a pool. A “splash yard” is slated be constructed on the opposite side of the complex.
“I loved living here for eight years, this was a wonderful place to live,” said Brown, a construction worker who found a place a few blocks away. For him to come back, though, he wants a unit with a washer and a dryer.
The 100 “Parkside” market units will have just that, along with a host of energy-efficient appliances available in all of the apartments.
Efforts like Palmilla are important in West Ashley, and across the rest of the region, according to City Councilman Keith Waring, who represents the area surrounding the complex.
“We don’t want to become Hilton Head, where bank tellers have to commute into the city because they can’t find a decent place to live at a reasonable price,” said Waring.
Waring applauded the city’s requirement for affordable housing to be considered in the plans for any peninsular projects, but worries that policy doesn’t automatically extend to this side of the Ashley River.
Waring’s concerns could soon become amplified, as 6,000-unit developments like the one slated for the stalled Long Savannah site along Bees Ferry Road comes back online.
Hampstead assets manager Patrick Harper said the hope is to have the renovations completed within the year. He added that the company is also pursuing similar projects in Charleston and Columbia.