Trend to purpose built affordable housing for seniors
LONDON: A community Housing provider has completed an affordable housing project for seniors that replaced a run-down apartment complex built during World War II.
Amanecer, which means sunrise, was finished last year by Community HousingWorks.
“We can look at this as an intergenerational project collectively,” said Stephen Swiecicki, vice president of Community HousingWorks. “There’s a lot of opportunities there for cross pollination of activities.”
The names of the complementary projects are partly a play on the ages of the residents.
The three-story Puesta Del Sol at 2601-2641 Ulric St. has 59 one-bedroom apartments of 500 square feet for low-income seniors with annual incomes of 30% to 60% of the Area Median Income, and one two-bedroom manager’s apartment.
Six of the apartments were set aside for chronically homeless individuals.
Amenities include a community room of about 2,000 square feet, a laundry room, a business center, a community kitchen, and a multi-purpose room on the second floor that opens out onto a balcony.
Combined with Amanecer at 2645 Ulric St., Puesta Del Sol “is the largest single new construction development in the Linda Vista area in over 30 years,” said Swiecicki said.
“It’s an area of older housing stock.”
The 36 apartments that were razed to make way for Puesta Del Sol were poorly maintained to the point where “it was almost unhealthy for the residents that lived there,” Swiecicki said. “The owner never took care of it prior to us coming in. This new project is certainly an improvement.”
People who were displaced by the new construction were given the option of leasing an apartment in the new buildings.
Designed by Studio E Architects, based in Bankers Hill, Puesta Del Sol, like many of the buildings designed by the firm, has a mix of vibrant colors, inside and out.
“If you drive on Ulric Street now, when you get to this project and its companion, there’s a kind of real optimistic feeling,” said Studio E Principal Eric Naslund.
