MEMPHIS, TN - An affiliate of ALCO Management, Inc. closed on financing to fund a $10 million renovation of Cathedral Place Apartments, a 47-year-old affordable housing community in Mobile, Alabama, for low-income elderly residents. Construction will begin in August and will last about a year.
Memphis-based ALCO acquired Cathedral Place in 2019 with a long-term vision for preserving its quality and accessibility. This renovation guarantees the apartments will stay affordable for low-income elderly residents for the next 30 years.
ALCO’s enhancements include new kitchens, bathrooms, lighting, and flooring in all 190 apartments. The project will also modernize the building with upgrades to the windows, HVAC system, water heating system, and fire sprinkler system. A new community room and library on the 13th floor will allow residents to socialize and look out on downtown Mobile without ever leaving the building.
The preservation plan comes as the National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that Alabama lacks 76,023 affordable rental homes for extremely low-income households. An estimated 21% of the region’s extremely low-income renter households are seniors.
“Nobody can do these projects alone,” said ALCO Acquisitions & Development Analyst Thomas Robinson. “It takes a whole team, and this team is committed to providing quality affordable housing for the elderly residents of Mobile.”
The rehabilitation project is a partnership between ALCO, First Horizon Community Investment Group, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Alabama Housing Finance Authority. It is financed in partnership with Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital, First Horizon Community Investment Group, and Stifel. Mitchell M. Hall is the architect, and CMCC, LLC, is the general contractor. Wesley Living will provide resident service programming to the residents of Cathedral Place.
ALCO oversees more than 5,900 apartment units across nine states in the Southeast. ALCO has operated for 48 years with the mission to provide quality affordable housing. Typically, when ALCO acquires an apartment community, it improves the community through extensive renovations and protects the affordability by extending commitments for an additional 30 years. ALCO is a long-term owner dedicated to building community by investing in residents’ homes and offering tailored resident-services programs that make the apartment communities stable and desirable places to live.