Housing will allow elderly to ‘age in place’
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
GROUND BREAKING on “The Meadows,” a 25-unit elderly housing project located at 16 Harmony Lane in Fort Fairfield, was held Monday. The facility, which will have five two-bedroom and 20 one-bedroom units, will be ready for occupancy Sept. 1, 2013.
Attending the ground-breaking ceremony were, from left: Tony Levesque, community development director; Fred McGillan Jr. of McGillan, Inc., earthwork subcontractor; Robert Dorsey, president and chief executive officer of Aroostook Partnership for Progress; Mandy Hall of engineering firm B.R. Smith and Associates; Jim Martin of J.P. Martin and Sons, project contractor; Gary Sirois, Fort Fairfield Residential Development Corp. (FFRDC) board member; Town Manager Dan Foster, Greg Murchison, president of the FFRDC; John Herold, FFRDC board member; Wayne Troicke, executive director of the Fort Fairfield Housing Authority and FFRDC secretary/treasurer; Sandra Durepo and Roma Higgins, FFRDC board members; and George Watson, public works director.
FORT FAIRFIELD — Ground breaking on a 25-unit elderly housing project in Fort Fairfield was held Monday, and the complex should be ready for occupancy in about a year.
Located at 16 Harmony Lane — just off Presque Isle Street — “The Meadows” will have five two-bedroom and 20 one-bedroom units.
“It’s an 11-month project from start to finish,” said Wayne Troicke, executive director of the Fort Fairfield Housing Authority and secretary/treasurer of the Fort Fairfield Residential Development Corp. “It’s a great relief to get to a point where we can actually put a shovel in the ground and start work.
“The project includes winter work,” he said. “Crews have to get the foundation in, put the walls up and roof on so they can start working inside. If we start work at the end of this month, we’re looking at an occupancy date of Sept. 1, 2013.”
The project has been approved by the Maine State Housing Authority in its 4 percent tax credit application process held last September. The purpose of the project is to provide affordable housing opportunities to the seniors — ages 55 and older — in Fort Fairfield. Individuals with income levels at or below 60 percent area median income will be eligible to rent at “The Meadows.” Currently those rates are $22,800 for singles and $26,040 for couples, and applications are now being accepted for occupancy.
“Fourteen of the units will be fully ADA complaint, while 11 units are ADA adaptable within one day by removing cabinets under the vanity and kitchen sink and installing roll-under units, lowering kitchen base cabinets and installing a transfer seat on the bathtub,” Troicke said. “All other requirements will already be in place.”
A market study was done at the beginning of the application process to identify the need for such a facility in town.
“We determined that the elderly is the highest growing population in this part of the state. We’re looking at approximately a 13-percent increase over the next five years, and people are at a point where they want to get out of having to care for a home and into elderly housing,” said Troicke. “The need for this type of housing is definitely out there.”
Town Manager Dan Foster said it took “a total collaborative effort from several in our community to pull it off.”
“We’ve been working on this project for four years. One of the things that clearly has become evident is that there is a strong will within the community to constantly look to see how we can enhance the quality of life of our citizens in Fort Fairfield,” he said. “We had citizens come together through the Fort Fairfield Residential Development Corp., the Fort Fairfield Housing Authority and through the town of Fort Fairfield and say, ‘How can we make this work?’
“When I look around and see how difficult it is for projects like this to come to fruition, and I can see that Fort Fairfield was able to do this because of the citizens, it’s very heart-warming and gratifying,” said Foster. “The need for people who grew up and lived in Fort Fairfield their whole lives only to have to leave once they got up in years was a real shame. Now with this much-needed elderly housing they can age right here in their hometown. It’s a tribute to the tenacity of the citizens of this community.”
The engineering firm B.R. Smith and Associates of Presque Isle designed the facility and J.P. Martin and Sons Construction Co. from Caribou has been selected as the general contractor. The total project cost is $4,220,534 which includes a construction cost of $3,120,949 or $124,838 per unit. The remaining $1,099,585 includes the land purchase, infrastructure upgrades, architectural and engineering, legal, pre-development costs, development fees and the initial operating reserve fund.
“The funding is in place; that is not an issue,” said Foster. “The money is coming from a private investor because of a tax incentive that the IRS allows; they’re putting in a little over $1 million, and the Maine State Housing Authority is putting in $3 million. The town of Fort Fairfield is the developer for this project, which is something you don’t normally see. It’s pretty exciting.”
The town has engaged Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI) as a consultant on the project. CEI was the developer for the Houlton tax credit project, Market Square Commons, which opened July 2010.
“CEI has been working with us for three years on the application process. They will now be working as a consultant during the development stage of the project,” said Troicke. “The involvement and planning of the development team and the community has been instrumental in achieving this long-awaited goal.”
“The Meadows” will feature a community room, a front-load laundromat, elevator, covered entry, walking paths and gardens. A resident services coordinator will be on site weekly.
For more information or to apply for residency, call the Fort Fairfield Housing Authority at 476-5771.
