The grant will be used to help offset the renovation costs for vacant space above Xenia Shoe & Leather Repair, located at 19/21 E. Main Street.
City of Xenia and the building owners are contributing a $149,400 cash match, according to HUD.
“It’s just one more step in sort of helping downtown become a little more vibrant and more vibrant place, so we’re really excited,” said building owner Tim Sontag.
The city, in its 2008 Downtown Strategic Plan, made converting vacant upper levels of downtown buildings into residences a priority, according to the city’s community development coordinator Mary Crockett.
“The whole time we’ve known that housing was going to be important particularly as a way to make downtown just a place where people want to be. We aren’t going to get there just through retail or office or just through First Fridays or events or bicycling or things like that. People are going to need to live there,” Crockett explained.
Seventy-five percent of the buildings in the historic district are occupied but most of the upper levels are vacant, Crocket said. The city has tried to spur residential development in the downtown by offering a Design Code Assessment Program (DCAP).
The program is intended “to defray the costs in getting some professional, particularly historic architectural engineering assistance so that people can get quality assistance on what it would realistically cost to bring these projects to life in terms of adapt and reuse,” Crockett explained.
Sontag used DCAP and then worked with Crockett, who wrote the application for the HUD grant.
“As our nation’s older neighborhoods are rejuvenated and become economically stronger, we must create additional affordable housing for low-income folks,” said HUD Secretary Julián Castro. “HUD is committed to preserving and increasing affordable rental housing opportunities in communities undergoing change, just like in Xenia.”
Sontag’s business, Xenia Shoe & Leather Repair, will continue to occupy the building’s first floor, while units targeting low-income residents will occupy the second and third floors. The upper floors have been vacant for at least twenty years, Sontag said.
“Our design is to put two apartments on each floor. They’re going to be single-bedroom apartments, but I think they’re going to be really roomy and nice,” Sontag added.
Sontag hopes to have the apartments constructed and rented out within the next two years. Crockett said she is hopeful more building owners will follow suit.
“I think there will be a market, but it’s just getting this first one started so people feel comfortable,” she said.
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