LANSING — Jan Munk was drawn to her eastside neighborhood more than four decades ago by its diversity and affordability.
The neighborhood, just a mile and a half from the heart of downtown, isn’t as nice as it once was, she says, but she’s hoping that a new initiative to rehab nine older homes bought for possible expansion by Sparrow Hospital but recently donated to nonprofits will help revitalize streets around her home.
Habitat for Humanity Capital Region and the Ingham County Land Bank will renovate the homes.
“Houses in our neighborhood are over $200,000, that’s never happened here,” Munk said. “I know I could sell our house. But what kind of place could you move to? My kids grew up here and I’d like to stay.”
Michigan’s population is stagnant, and that isn’t likely to change unless the state’s housing crisis is addressed, experts say. In the Lansing region alone, officials estimate 7,500 housing units need to be built soon just to keep up with the demand. The pace of rehabilitation of the region’s older housing stock needs to quicken as well.
The lack of housing stock has sent home prices spiraling upward, at time when inflation has made rehabbing older homes expensive and, in some cases, nearly cost prohibitive.
It’s a real-world problem officials are grappling with now. With several major employers set to open in the next year — including an Ultium battery plant and Amazon fulfillment center in Delta Township — the Lansing area is expecting to get more new jobs in a shorter time period than it has in years.
But where those new workers will live could be a big problem, said Ken Fletcher, Delta Township’s supervisor.
There are just over 100 homes on the market with price points under $100,000, largely in Lansing, but experts caution many of those homes could need significant, expensive repairs. There’s another 111 priced between $100,000 and $200,000, and more than 80 of those are in Ingham County, primarily in Lansing. For residents wanting to buy homes in Eaton and Clinton counties, or the more affluent areas of Ingham County, the vast majority of homes will be priced between $200,000 and $400,000 or more.
The Amazon and Ultium developments are expected to create more than 2,200 jobs by the end of 2025.
There aren’t enough homes
Like the rest of Michigan, the low supply of quality housing is a big driver of increased housing costs, said Hillary Doe, Michigan’s chief growth officer.
She cited Federal Reserve Bank data, from Chicago’s branch, showing that Michigan needs to figure out housing before it can grow. That’s going to take fixing up old homes, building new single family homes and standing up new apartment buildings, Doe said. The downtown Lansing area added at least 600 housing units in the last two and a half years with hundreds more that are under construction.
There simply aren’t enough housing units, and that lack of options causes housing costs to rise, said Amy Hovey, CEO and executive director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, which offers programs for renters, owners and developers.
“The big issue we have in our state is supply, we don’t have enough housing to meet our needs and we can’t just build our way out of it without some incentives or subsidies,” she said.
State housing leaders announced earlier this month a new statewide grant program with $60 million to fix dilapidated homes or build new ones.
Doe came to Lansing a few days later, for a separate housing announcement for new apartments units at the REO Gateway Apartments, at Washington Avenue and Malcolm X Street, beside Interstate 496.
A fourth building at REO Gateway, that will rely on state funding, was announced. It will have two dozen new units, in addition to the complex’s 72 existing units, which started opening for lease last year.
The apartments took about a decade to build from the concept, said developer Brett Forsberg.
That timeline needs to be dramatically compressed, he said, if Michigan wants to build more housing.
How many houses do we need?
State data puts the number of new homes that need to be built at around 7,500 in Greater Lansing.
Alan Fox, Ingham County’s treasurer and a board member of the Ingham County Land Bank, said the number may be closer to 10,000, but coming anywhere close to either number would take many years and plenty of effort.
Fletcher said Delta Township has gotten serious, and creative, about opening up housing options in preparation for the township’s new employers.
The township has recently changed its ordinances to allow for more variety of homes — like smaller cottage homes and more permissive multi-family projects — and is working to expand sewer access to open development in the western parts, Fletcher said.
The township recently approved an expansion that would nearly double one of the area’s larger apartment complexes, adding another 354 units in 11 new buildings.
Developers have been more interested in apartments and multi-family units than neighborhoods of single-family homes, potentially because of the current interest and construction costs, he said.
Some of that may be changing soon.
Even as costs remain high, the number of new home permits in February was 38% higher than February 2023. That may be, in part, a one-time statistical blip because of potential new state regulations and a mild winter, said Bob Filka, CEO of the Home Builders Association of Michigan.
“There are too few housing options available and we’ve had a mild winter,” Filka said. “This, along with the potential of significant new housing costs being imposed by LARA (Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs) later this year, with new costly proposed code requirements, explains the acceleration we’re seeing.”
He said builders worry that sprinklers and other potential code requirements could increase costs for a single home by $20,000 or more.
Filka said regulatory and construction costs already make it “usually impossible to build a home for less than $350,000 or $400,000 and make money in the mid-Michigan market.”
Not even $15 billion would fix it
Fox said the housing shortage is a $15 billion problem, assuming 7,500 homes could be built for a likely unrealistic $200,000 each. But it would still be difficult, if not impossible, to find the people, the material and the land to do it in a reasonable time period.
The county doesn’t have billions. It does have $9 million remaining in pandemic money dedicated toward housing and county commissioners are starting to float a proposal to add a county millage to support housing.
The existing money won’t go far if the county builds homes; it’d be a few dozen houses.
So instead, Fox and county officials are planning to use it to fund educational programs, attract private investment and otherwise try to stretch the money.
Encouraging homeowners to keep up with repairs, connecting investors with local real estate options and helping renters to save up money are some of the ways the area’s housing situation will get better, he said.
And nonprofits will play a role.
It will take several years for the homes Sparrow Health System once bought for possible expansion of health facilities to be rehabbed, said Brent Taylor, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Capital Region, adding that his organization is about six months into that process. They are working on about half of the homes.
For the Sparrow homes, Taylor said it was important to renovate those as single-family homes. Having a broad mix of housing — rentals, single-family homes and others — is important, although one of the gaps in the market now is single-family homes, he said. Many of the homes Sparrow donated were split over the years into duplexes and will be converted back into large single-family homes.
The homes tick all the boxes for Josh Hamilton, who lives in the neighborhood and works for University of Michigan Health-Sparrow. As he waited for the school bus to drop off kids Monday, Hamilton said he wanted the vacant homes to be fixed up and owner-occupied so he’ll have some new neighbors soon.
“I’m excited to see it happen,” Hamilton said.
‘We can’t just build our way out of it’
The state has been in a housing crisis for years, Hovey said.
“We can’t just build our way out of it without some incentives or subsidies because of what it costs for people to build,” Hovey said. “Because what it costs to build, the average Michigander can’t afford to pay.”
The incentives and subsidies would come from a variety of state and federal programs, along with municipal and county-level programs. There are so many options that working with a local housing agency can help people find programs, Hovey said.
She said the state’s efforts at attracting jobs are running into problems because potential recruits can’t always find housing. That means companies sometimes pull out of Michigan plans or don’t consider the state due to a lack of housing.
“You cannot imagine how frustrating it is for an employee to have to pull out of a job, and say they can’t find housing so they can’t take that job,” Hovey said. “That happens across our state, including in Lansing.”
Rawley Van Fossen, Lansing’s director of economic development and planning, said the Capital Area Housing Partnership, Habitat for Humanity Capital Region, the Ingham County Land Bank and Eastside Community Action Center are four of the groups doing the work on the former Sparrow homes. Together they can probably do dozens a year, welcome relief for some but it doesn’t go far enough.
Fixing up those homes — and others like them in Lansing, which has many homes 75 years old or older — will often cost more than they will be valued at afterward, said Van Fossen, who until recently was the executive director of the Capital Area Housing Partnership.
Van Fossen said it can cost a homeowner or a property developer a few hundred thousand dollars to buy a Lansing property, get the professional planning work necessary for the renovation, get permits, hire a contractor and pay for the renovation. At the end, the home may appraise for $170,000, on a good day, he said.
“There’s a gap,” he said, acknowledging a major factor that can keep people from improving homes in Lansing. “A private developer or someone who is not mission based, they’re not going to do that. We can’t rely on our nonprofits.”
Most people will need more financial support.
He said some of the city’s best tools are education and connections to a wide variety of financial supports: Teaching real estate and financial literacy at community centers and being able to walk people through the permitting and construction process. The state offers several programs to help fund repairs, renovations, new homeowners, early-stage developers and large-scale developments.
Utility companies can also offer incentives for appliances and modernizations, Van Fossen said.
Anyone who wants to do significant renovations for themselves, or even get into developing houses or flipping them, can go to Lansing’s offices and get some help with the wide variety of programs, Van Fossen said.
To get more affordable housing, Filka suggests density like smaller lots and multi-family options like townhomes or duplexes, as well as taking advantage of state subsidies like tax credits and construction subsidies.
Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415
Coastal Georgia’s boom in new industries, coupled with its population increase, has forced local authorities to pause and take into account where the influx of newcomers holding these new gigs will lay their head at night. Chatham County alone, for example, has a housing deficit of 9,300-10,000 units, especially to support workforce housing for those making 60% to 120%. of area median income.
The Savannah Economic Development Authority (SEDA) is teaming up with Georgia Tech for a Comprehensive Coastal Georgia Housing study, which was introduced during SEDA’s monthly meeting Tuesday. The research will take inventory of the housing stock in Bryan, Bulloch, Chatham and Effingham counties, as well as the city of Savannah to determine the best areas for housing growth.
What does a housing study do?
Each county and the City of Savannah will pay $20,000 for the study. A state grant worth $100,000 will go toward the project.
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Betsy McGriff of the Center for Economic Development Research at Georgia Tech said this kind of research is imperative to ensure communities are built to grow over time.
“We do this to make sure your infrastructure can handle the development you propose,” said McGriff. “What we are doing will be a community engaged process.”
Can laborers afford to live here?
There is one major issue looming regarding the housing boom that is expected to occur. Many of the homes in the area are out of reach financially.
“You look at wages and if there’s a mismatch between wages on the market and the cost of homes, that might be considered in terms of what you try to drive as far as construction,” said McGriff. “If the demographic shows a certain area has a one-person household, you may consider smaller homes. The government can issue a request for proposal and work with the development authority to drive the kind of development they want to public property [that they own]. The big piece is, time is money. The more you can streamline that process – you can drive down the cost of development.”
According to the real estate website Redfin, the average home prices in each county are:
- Bryan County: $430,000
- Bulloch County: $265,000
- Chatham County: $352,000
- Effingham County: $318,000
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, however, the average median household income across the four-county region is shy of $75,000, which means most households could not afford a home above $245,000 without being cost burdened.
Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter said during a previous interview that the state has been “addressing” the need for funding to go towards workforce housing.
“That’s extremely important,” said Carter. “Federal funds have been flowing through the state to address that. We are going to make sure they have what they need.”
Carter did not provide a dollar amount.
While some counties allow the market to determine the price of homes, McGriff said there are ways to mitigate the cost. She said it is important to attract developments that “the CEO and the security guard can afford.”
McGriff said she grew up in a rural community and understands the hardships that come with change and said that community character will be considered as Georgia Tech conducts its research.
She added that because Georgia is a property rights state, owners, for the most part, have control over their land.
“You can’t shut the gate and tell people not to come. What you can do is drive development to the places where services are appropriate and preserve green spaces. We are cognizant of that but we also want to be welcoming of people that are investing in the community. You have to balance that out.”
The study is slated to be complete by October.
Latrice Williams is a general assignment reporter covering Bryan and Effingham County. She can be reached at lwilliams6@gannett.com.
The median home in Westchester County listed for $695,000 in March, up 7.1% from the previous month’s $649,000, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows.
Compared to March 2023, the median home list price increased 15.9% from $601,750.
The statistics in this article only pertain to houses listed for sale in Westchester County, not houses that were sold. Information on your local housing market, along with other useful community data, is available at data.lohud.com.
Westchester County’s median home was 1,700 square feet, listed at $380 per square foot. The price per square foot of homes for sale is up 10.8% from March 2023.
Search the Lower Hudson Valley NY Real Estate Database
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- Search by Location: Input your county, town or a name to access a list of recent real estate transactions.
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Search your town’s home sales:Real estate transactions in New York State since 2004
Listings in Westchester County moved briskly, at a median 32 days listed compared to the March national median of 50 days on the market. In the previous month, homes had a median of 49 days on the market. Around 960 homes were newly listed on the market in March, a 2.1% increase from 940 new listings in March 2023.
The median home prices issued by Realtor.com may exclude many, or even most, of a market’s homes. The price and volume represent only single-family homes, condominiums or townhomes. They include existing homes, but exclude most new construction as well as pending and contingent sales.
House prices:Check out the most expensive single-family home ever sold in White Plains
Across the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area, median home prices rose to $759,900, slightly higher than a month earlier. The median home had 1,502 square feet, at a list price of $555 per square foot.
In New York, median home prices were $685,000, a slight increase from February. The median New York home listed for sale had 1,587 square feet, with a price of $420 per square foot.
Throughout the United States, the median home price was $424,900, a slight increase from the month prior. The median American home for sale was listed at 1,826 square feet, with a price of $228 per square foot.
The median home list price used in this report represents the midway point of all the houses or units listed over the given period of time. Experts say the median offers a more accurate view of what’s happening in a market than the average list price, which would mean taking the sum of all listing prices then dividing by the number of homes sold. The average can be skewed by one particularly low or high price.
The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Realtor.com. Please leave any feedback or corrections for this story here. This story was written by Ozge Terzioglu.
These real estate transactions were recorded in Crawford County during March:
228 N. Boston St. (three parcels), Galion; Charles and Linda Swick to Brennen Yant; $155,000
984 Tiehack Court W., Galion: A. Elaine Hottenroth to Steven M. and Erin C. Williams; $270,000
700 W. Warren St., Bucyrus; Bradley S. Powers, Joseph L. Powers and Mark T. Powers to Jennifer J. Lafrance and Renee E. Powell; $68,500
3081 Oak Drive, Bucyrus; Gerard J. and Elizabeth A. Dolan to Matthew R. and Kylie A. Hatfield; $285,000
143 Pounder Ave., Galion; Mark I. Pittman to Ashley Sellers and Patrick Hook; $155,000
251-253 S. Market St., Galion; Jordan Oil to Dilshaan Foodmart; $110,000
527 N. Union St., Galion; Michael K. and Kathy J. Jenne to David J. Rhoades Jr.; $154,000
6760 Brandt Road, Galion; Brenda J. Mason to Miler M. Ramos; $70,001
320 Liberty St., Bucyrus; The Estate of Edward Naveja to Thomas W. Applegate; $120,000
1207 John St., Bucyrus; Lisa M. Miller, administrator, to Randy W. Bloomfield; $55,510
148 Kincora Drive, Bucyrus; Lutz Custom Homes to Amy A. Roe; $266,764
716 Kaler Ave., Bucyrus; Ashley N. Howell to Melia C. Williamson; $123,500
215 Seventh Ave., Galion; Richland County Home Buyers to Amanda H. Landry; $166,000
1668 Fairview Road, Galion; Zachery and Rachelle Wirick to Carline A. Garverick and Tucker L. Hall; $285,000
One parcel on Ohio 96, Crestline; John D. and Marlene K. Burkhart to Brian D. Burkhart; $120,000
4888 Dickerson Road & 30.47 acres, Annapolis DeKalb Road, Tiro; The Marjorie A. Shealy Trust to The Phenecie 2024 Irrevocable Trust; $1,500,894
One parcel (42,27 acres) on Annapolis Dekalb Road, Tiro; The Marjorie A. Shealy Trust to The Phenecie 2024 Irrevocable Trust; $591,210
4888 Dickson Road, Tiro; The Marjorie A. Shealy Trust to R and K Conservation; $1,707,895
1163 Rosedale Ave., Bucyrus; Chad and Jessica Kernell to Ashley N. Howell and Keith A. Morris; $294,000
1900 Whetsone St., Bucyrus; Susan G. Gulley to Jessica M. and Chad D. Kernell; $440,000
5194 Stetzer Road (four parcels), Bucyrus; Rickey A. and Jennifer S. Burton to Thomas J. and Amy M. Ohlinger; $282,500
272 N. Union St., Galion; The Estate of Jeffrey D. Court to Melissa A. Hershey; $155,900
309 E. Rensselaer St., Bucyrus; Raul Ornelas and Maria G. Rodriguez to Nayeli Mendez Mazariegos; $30,000
2380 Spore Brandywine Road, Bucyrus; Tyler Stevens and Samantha A. Stevens, fka Samantha A. Palmer, to Lawrence D. and Cheryl L. Schmidt; $40,000
833 Crew Ave., Galion; Amanda J. Needels to Tony L. Castle; $44,000
205-205½ S. Union St., Galion; James L. Toth to Joshua R. and Shana M. Keller; $20,000
6659 Middletown Road, Galion; David Cowgill to Mark D. and Jamie C. Tate; $155,000
6273 Crestline Road, Galion; Amy A. Roe to Mark A. and Melissa Holbrook; $249,900
692 Crescent Way, Galion; Perry J. Swinehart to Robbie L. Servis; $119,900
6907 Sandusky Ave. (two parcels), Chatfield; Chatfield Hardware Co. to Chatwood LLC; $85,000
500 W. Warren St., Bucyrus; Mark E. Pfeifer and Allison Pfeifer, htta Allison Bullock, to Kevan and Abbie R. Hughett; $121,900
200 W. Summit St., Galion; U.S. Bank Trust National Association to Diane and Scott Persinger; $57,000
319 Heritage Circle, Bucyrus; Lakeview Loan Servicing to Howard K. Martin; $135,299
1355 Biddle Road, Galion; Murrel and Justin R. Lewis to RXPLUS Renovate; $199,400
390 Clink Blvd., Crestline; Tira L. Stima to Jamie A. and Garrison L. Stima; $86,000
7645 Ohio 309 (two parcels), Galion; Candace L. and Sherri J. Penn to Carrie Levering-Smith; $45,000
102 Switzer Drive, Galion; Harold G. and Mary R. Cramer to John Plott; $239,900
One parcel (2.290 acres), Crossroads Boulevard, Bucyrus; Crawford County Development Board Inc. to Crossroads Holdings; $34,350
906 Prospect St. (two parcels), Bucyrus; Trenton M. Cornell Estate to James Coonrod; $139,000
247 Hayes Ave., Bucyrus; Janet W. Luman to Everett H. and Naomi R. Fortner; $130,000
1022 Laura Ave., Bucyrus; Joyce A. Brown to Elizabeth A. Pack; $240,000
210 Bennett Drive (two parcels), Galion; Dorothy Silavent Estate to Lori E. Ehrman; $120,000
766 Center St. (two parcels), Galion; Benjamin C. and Jillian Kaple to Brooke L. and Daniel L. Newell; $335,000
116 N. Spring St., Bucyrus; Mark I. and Cynthia L. Light to Joshua Lawson; $18,500
640 W. Perry St. (two parcels), Bucyrus; Robert S. and Hanna H. Patterson to Jeremy and Taryn Hutton; $48,405
3393 Monnett New Winchester Road, Caledonia; Tiffany M. Stocksdale, nka Tiffany Kibler, and Jonathan Kibler; $295,000
726 Richardson Ave. (two parcels), Galion; Lowell F. Eusey to Tammy L. Randolph; $135,000
One parcel (3.00 acres) on Spore Brandywine Road, Nevada; Phyllis L. Tschanen and Bette J. Harden to Brian D. and Beth A. Dunlap; $21,000
One parcel (15.399 acres) on Spore Brandywine Road, Nevada; Phyllis L. Tschanen and Bette J. Harden to Jason J. Roop, trustee of The Roop Preservation Trust; $107,793
4050 Clady Road (two parcels), Bloomville; Aaron Studer to STM Farms LLC; $10,990
1429 Cullen Court (two parcels), Bucyrus; Jennifer L. Rogers and Catherine M. Richman to Timothy and Debbie Monaco; $193,000
355 Bennett Drive, Galion; Cody A. VanMeter and Sarah D. Hines to David G. Newman; $250,000
145 Beal Ave., Bucyrus; The Estate of Thomas P. Steinmetz to OPH; $130,000
7907 Anker Drive (two parcels), Galion; Richard N. Jacobs to Ashlie M. Lee; $129,900
One parcel (2.205 acres), Quigg Road, Crestline; Niese Family Farms to Patrick C. and Shelly M. Niese; $25,000
7075 Quigg Road (three parcels), Crestline; Patrick C. and Shelly M. Niese to Nick N. and Miranda Fike; $275,000
304 N. Boston St., Galion; Mary A. Stone, et al. to Erin B. Gorrell; $162,000
5680 Monat Drive, Galion; Tracy D. and Cheryl E. Rehm to Logan A. Knipp and Madison D. Niese; $185,000
124 E. Arnold St., Crestline; William A. and Stephanie L. Wine to Rodney E. and Kathleen M. Fender; $109,000
219 Wilson Ave., Galion; Harold and Jessica Smith to Stephen Pence; $130,000
800 S. Poplar St., Bucyrus; Robert J. Sherman to Charles E. and Nevada N. Zinn; $140,000
252 S. Pierce St., Galion; Rent Due to Brian A. Gress; $35,000
136 Orange St. (two parcels), Galion; Rick Kigar, private selling officer, to Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB; $63,334
319 N. Columbus St., Crestline; Richland County Home Buyers to Paul J. and Tracy L. Lannon; $124,000
236 W. Summit St., Galion; Zachary J. and Elizabeth Hatfield to Miguel Sanchez; $99,000
547 Whetstone St., Bucyrus; Ken E. Shulaw, et al. to Teresa V. and Kenneth E. Long; $43,000
1215 Dawsett Ave., Galion; Jeffrey T. Everly to Justin A. and Enid R. Ramsey; $25,000
333 E. Mary St. (six parcels), Bucyrus; Ashleigh N. Cooper to Robina L. Adams; $100,000
815 Arrowhead Drive, Bucyrus; Marcia S. Zagoric, Shawn A. Bolon and Sherri J. Snyder to Kobe S. Stillberger; $270,000
624 W. Bucyrus St., Crestline; Italia M. and Payton M. Rine to Brandon and Jordan Crabtree; $180,000
1264 Ohio 100, Bucyrus; Janet L. Graham by Michael T. Graham, power of attorney, to Nicholas T. Graham; $125,000
214 N. Liberty St., Galion; Sandra M. Campbell to Lisa Pauley, trustee of The North Liberty Street Trust; $25,000
115-117 S. Henry St. (four parcels), Crestline; JAKREST to Jon Kelso Rentals; $255,000
722 S. Sandusky Ave. (two parcels), Bucyrus; S. Rose Estates to Harmanjit Singh and Simranjeet Kaur; $185,000
GLASSBORO — Construction of townhomes could start as early as July on a patchwork of parcels the borough owns on and near South Academy Street, an area Glassboro has struggled to redevelop.
Late last year, the Borough Council agreed to sell the real estate for $1.45 million to Woods Glassboro Properties Development LLC. The council also named the company the official redeveloper for the properties, which include lots that are vacant because of past demolitions.
The company will build 38 duplex townhome buildings over two phases, for a total of 76 residential units. The plan was approved after a lengthy public hearing Tuesday night before the Planning Board.
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“The development is going to be set up as a condominium, with the owner of each individual unit owning their unit,” company attorney Matthew Madden told the board. “But otherwise, the property will be owned and managed by a homeowners association.”
The first phase involves 13 buildings, built on two sites, on the west side of South Academy Street. All buildings are to be three stories tall.
The second phase involves 24 buildings, for another 48 residential units, on the east side of Academy Street and partially off Warrick Avenue. A clubhouse is part of phase two.
Frank Cifelli and Sean Frankel, two of the principals in the company, testified at the hearing.
Cifelli said phase two construction is tentatively slated to start in January 2025. The company has done projects with this style of townhome in the Philadelphia area with good success, he said.
Cifelli said the price range will start around $350,000. “We expect it to be a pretty successful development,” he said.
The project reached this stage after a lot of discussions with borough officials. One critical point was the borough desire to keep townhomes turning into rental properties for the college student population.
Cifelli said sale agreements will have provisions to make it difficult for investors to buy and turn around to rent a unit.
Borough Administrator Edward Malandro supported that claim, saying the company is adapting language the borough’s redevelopment attorney provided.
“This is a product that mayor and council have gone after for quite some time,” Malandro, an ex-councilman, said. “Academy Street? Trying to redevelop that? Again, I’ve been involved for close to 25 years now. And it’s been a struggle to redevelop that section of town. We think we have a great partner.”
On Thursday, Malandro said a closing date is not set for selling the land.
Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.
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David Buntjer was 18 when he died in September 2022, five months after welcoming the Statesman Journal into his Salem apartment to talk about the work he and other teens were doing to help other homeless youth.
On Wednesday a crowd celebrated the opening of a new transitional shelter in Monmouth bearing his name.
David’s House initially will provide transitional housing for five Polk County youth, and eventually house up to 10. Teens will be able to stay up to two years or until they graduate high school and turn 18.
It will serve as a stopgap between emergency shelters and permanent support. On-site staff will support the youth 24 hours a day, including helping with homework and chores or giving rides to appointments.
“Every kiddo deserves to grow up in a neighborhood,” said Christopher Lopez, associate program director at Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance.
In 2022, there were an estimated 1,500 youth in the Mid-Valley experiencing homelessness at any given time. Buntjer was one of them.
During the sentencing of the man convicted of shooting and killing his father a couple of months before Buntjer died, he said his father’s death was the hardest thing he had gone through and his difficulties with housing and feeling secure. In an earlier interview he recalled being threatened with a machete after asking older people if he and his peers could sleep near them.
Buntjer was part of Backbone, a youth advisory board involved in the implementation of Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project funding via a $3.7 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant to the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance.
Backbone members are experiencing homelessness or youth at risk of experiencing homelessness and they provided input for a 2022 Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance plan to to end youth homelessness.
David’s House will be the first program of its kind in Polk County
The Monmouth property was purchased in 2023 for $650,000. Repairs and updates of the property followed before a Wednesday ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Lopez said the location of the home was intentional. Services are often concentrated in more urban centers and youth are traditionally forced to travel to Salem for services. That removes them from the communities where they live.
“That induces trauma,” Lopez said.
David’s House will be the first program of its kind in Polk County.
“This is a big deal,” Polk County Commissioner Jeremy Gordon said Wednesday. “We want to take care of people where they are.”
Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, referred to the youth-specific shelter as a “very, very rare thing.”
Megan Perez, program manager at MWVCAA, said the goal is for the house to feel like a home setting rather than a facility.
There’s a resource room upstairs where youth will be able to find clothes and decor so they can make the space their own. A large deck is available in the backyard along with garden boxes. There are donated acoustic guitars in the living room.
Buntjer’s family has remained involved in the development of David’s House. They donated bikes and other supplies because they knew how passionate Buntjer had been about opening spaces like this, Perez said.
Two portraits of Buntjer greet visitors and residents at the home. Friday, MWVCAA will host a vigil to honor David and other youth.
Dianne Lugo covers the Oregon Legislature and equity issues. Reach her at dlugo@statesmanjournal.com or on X @DianneLugo
LANSING — The area has a number of commercial properties for sale, some that seem to have been on the market for long periods without a buyer — despite seemingly having a lot to offer prospective buyers or tenants.
Real estate brokers say there are many reasons a piece of property can sit on the market, even if it makes those who own the property and passersby wonder what’s taking so long.
In 2019, when the Centennial Group put a 70-year-old former bus station on South Washington Avenue, its headquarters for nearly two decades, up for sale, company CEO Salvatore Durso thought a buyer would come along quickly, but that hasn’t been the case.
The insurance company, which moved to a building down the street, invested about $1.2 million in renovating the property at 511 S. Washington Ave., which had become an eyesore by the late 1990s, with broken windows and people with nowhere else to go frequently staying the night inside.
“It was a classic urban blight when we bought it,” Durso said.
Centennial Group brought the building back to life, restoring the original terrazzo tile floors and enclosing a portion of the structure where buses would park to pick up riders.
“We felt pretty strongly that we would be able to sell the property even though we weren’t using all of it,” Durso said.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, changing the landscape in downtown Lansing. Downtown companies sent their workers home to work remotely. Today, filling vacant office space is still a struggle, and Centennial Group’s former home is still for sale.
It’s one of several large, visible commercial properties in the Lansing area that have been for sale for more than a year. Here’s a closer look at five of them and how real estate brokers see them being returned to use.
511 S. Washington Ave., Lansing
Centennial Group’s 10,665-square-foot, two-story building on South Washington Avenue has been on the market for four years. It has high ceilings, a front reception and lobby area, conference and training rooms, lots of open space and more than 30 parking spaces on the property, the property’s broker said.
There are pieces of history in the building’s basement, too, including signage and seating from when it was a bus station.
The property, priced at just over $1.19 million, has character, said Woodworth Commerical’s Todd Kosta, who represents the listing.
“You would never see these floors or this beautiful staircase today,” he said recently during a tour of the building. “We’ve had some people look at this and talk about restaurants or something like that.”
But Kosta said it’s likely it will be utilized as office space.
“We’re starting to see a lot of people coming back to the office,” he said.
3992 Coleman Road, East Lansing
Owner Mike Howard said the 1,830-square-foot former Tim Hortons at the corner of Coleman and Chandler roads is perfectly positioned to serve a fast-casual restaurant.
The property has been vacant for five years and on the market to buy or lease for about a year. Howard, a real estate agent with Colliers, bought it last spring, and has primarily marketed it to national companies.
Howard is in the process of working through a pending lease with a “national pizza chain,” though he declined to name them because the paperwork hasn’t been finalized. The business, which could open in six to 12 months, will utilize a pickup window on the building, he said.
“I’ve got some work to do on the outside of the building,” Howard said.
172 E. Edgewood Blvd., Lansing
The 5,286-square-foot former Hooters restaurant off East Edgewood Boulevard has been vacant since the chain closed the location in July 2019.
Kosta has been representing the property, on the market to lease, for six months. It sits on over an acre of land near Celebration Cinema Lansing & IMAX and Texas Roadhouse.
The property’s owner would prefer to lease it, but would entertain offers to buy it, though there is no price listed, Kosta said.
The building already has kitchen equipment, including a large oven hood, multiple fryers, a grill, a walk-in freezer and a refrigerator, but Kosta said whoever leases or buys it would likely want to make it their own.
“It’s going to take a substantial investment for somebody to do that,” he said. “I have seen interest, not from the regional or national restaurateurs we would like. We got a lot more interest from local mom-and-pop operators, which just makes it that much harder of a business model for them to come in there and do the kind of revenue that’s needed.”
2006 W. Willow St., Lansing
The nearly 7,000-square-foot building on West Willow Street has been vacant and on the market since late 2021 when DeLuca’s Restaurant closed its doors after more than 60 years of business. The property is listed for $649,900.
It remains for sale, despite having quite a lot to offer prospective buyers, said Gino Baldino, a real estate agent with NAI Mid-Michigan, which has represented the property for just over a year. Whoever buys it will get all the kitchen equipment, ovens and seating that is still inside, the restaurant’s liquor license, and ample parking on nearly an acre and a half.
“It’s a great building,” Baldino said. “The owners still maintain it very, very well. It is basically ready to go.”
Over the years, agents have shown the property to several prospective buyers, he said.
“I get inquiries,” he said. “Sometimes they go in spurts. Sometimes I get two or three calls in a week and sometimes, for a couple of weeks, I don’t get a call.”
Most of the people he’s shown the property to were considering opening their own restaurant, Baldino said.
809 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing
The nearly 15,000-square-foot building on East Michigan Avenue where Jon Anthony Florist has operated for at least 50 years sits on just over an acre and has over 200 feet of street frontage.
The property has been on the market for two years, listed for $1.6 million, but the flower shop, which dates back to the 1940s, still operates there. When the property sells, the flower business won’t close. It will likely move to a new location, said Pamela Sage.
Sage’s parents, and the founders of the flower shop, John and Harriet Anthony, passed away in the last five years.
“I’m the executor of their estate,” Sage said. “So we need to sell the property and settle with the rest of the inheritors.”
The decision to sell the property was emotional, she said.
“It was so much of my parents’ life. They absolutely loved their business. My mother worked there until she was 96,” she said.
Kosta, who is representing the property, said it’s been marketed to national companies, including restaurant groups.
“This property really just sets up well for redeveloping,” he said. “It’s an older building. I don’t think somebody will reuse the building, but to come in there and demolish it, you have a really good site. This has a lot of potential being right on Michigan Avenue.”
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Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on X @GrecoatLSJ .
At 8:03 Sunday night, the carillon chimes at First Baptist Church in Rolling Fork will play the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” to mark the moment exactly one year ago when an EF-4 wedge tornado began to rip a nearly mile-wide scar through this small town in the Mississippi Delta and obliterated virtually everything along historic U.S. 61.
It will be the first chime played by the new carillon after the old one was destroyed by the March 24, 2023 tornado that ripped across Mississippi. A new carillon and steeple were delivered and scheduled to be installed this week.
It marks one more step in the rebuilding of Rolling Fork, which commemorated the anniversary with several events leading up until Sunday.
The storm destroyed nearly 300 homes, many businesses and claimed 15 lives in the town of then 1,800 people. Wind speeds were reported just shy of 200 mph.
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Today, unofficial estimates are the population has shrunk to around 1,200 people as so many people were left with no place to live and no way to make a living. Those who are left are building back in what officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency say will likely be a three-year process. Even then, no one really knows if Rolling Fork in Sharkey County will ever get back to 1,800 people in the city limits.
“The citizens, the people are rebuilding lots of homes and businesses in Rolling Fork,” former Rolling Fork Mayor and former president of the Bank of Anguilla Fred Miller, who lives in Rolling Fork. He is also now the chairman of the board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas. “The non-profits are very much involved in making sure that the town comes back.”
One of those non-profits is Rolling Fork Rising, of which Miller is a member of the board directors. It has acquired 18 home sites that have been torn down to the slab and another 18 acres of land in the hopes of building as many as 100 new homes with money and materials that are donated and with the help of outside volunteers, who continue to make their mark on the community.
“We have six new foundations poured and funding for another 10 new houses this year. We know we are that far along,” Miller said. “We just got word that a former resident of Rolling Fork, who now lives in Atlanta, is going to make a sizeable contribution. So, while it may not be as fast as everyone would like, we are moving forward. That is positive.”
Despite FEMA recently approving nearly $3 million to reimburse the city of Rolling Fork for the replacement of signs and the repair of roads, Miller believes more could be done by the City of Rolling Fork.
“I am disappointed in city government,” Miller said. “We have spent a lot of money on things, in my mind, that are wasteful. I understand. I probably would have been overwhelmed at the scope of the disaster and I would have had a hard time, but I think the first thing I would have done was to find someone smarter than me who could help move things along. We needed as a city to hire people that had a resume going back to something like (Hurricane) Katrina that has handled this type of situation before and make sure we weren’t falling behind in the process. I don’t think that kind of thing has happened.”
Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker did not respond to requests from the Clarion Ledger for comments on this story.
Rolling Fork rising
Rolling Fork Rising is a nonprofit with a vision to help rebuild homes in Rolling Fork, especially for renters. Approximately 68% of the residents of Rolling Fork prior to the tornado were renters. There are several government and other programs created to help homeowners rebuild, but very limited opportunities to help renters.
Rolling Fork Rising is identifying former renters for their homes. The buyers are getting the homes at a reduced price, plus they are getting them at 0% interest.
“It really is a chance of a lifetime,” Miller said. “We just really hope there are enough people here in town to take advantage of this by the time we get finished.”
Emily Carter, a volunteer with Rolling Fork Rising, helps coordinate volunteers who come into town to help. While First Baptist Church is not associated with Rolling Fork Rising, it does donate space on their second floor for people to stay, in bunk-bed style, while they are in town. The church can house up to 50 people at a time.
“This all started because of the renters. There just wasn’t anywhere for them to go,” Carter said. “There aren’t any government programs for that. FEMA doesn’t help renters.”
Most of the landlords were not going to build back homes that were completely destroyed, but they did repair many houses that were just damaged.
“So, taking care of these renters is really the key for the future of the town,” Carter said. “Without the people, there is no town. There’s no schools or churches or the businesses or anything else. So, our hope is to get people in houses just as quickly as we can with the resources we have.”
Chuck’s Dairy Bar
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In one of the more amazing statistics that have come from the storm, along U.S. 61, the true business corridor for the town, every business that was either destroyed or damaged, except for one, is back in business.
The only one that hasn’t opened is Chuck’s Dairy Bar, but owner Tracy Harden said the local landmark will be up and running by the end of April. She has been running the restaurant from food truck, basically since the dust settled after the storm.
The new building is up and stoves and griddles and vent hoods are being installed as well as furniture after a months-long delay in getting a utility hookup completed.
But Harden is grateful just for the opportunity to be able to open again.
“The first night we open, we will honor those people we love who aren’t with us any more,” Harden said as she wiped tears away. “We will be thankful for our lives, thankful for how far we have come. Just the fact that we didn’t even start putting our building up since September, we have come a long way.”
Harden and her staff hid from the storm last year in the restaurant cooler while two patrons hid in the bathrooms.
With that knowledge, Master-Bilt, the refrigerator company, donated $35,000 worth of a cooler system for the new Chuck’s with double the capacity of the old system. The old cooler had been in place since 1977 when the last Chuck’s building was built.
“When they saw that we had a bigger slab for the restaurant, they gave us more room for the cooler,” Harden said. “It’s installed, it’s cooling, and we can start putting groceries in it pretty soon.”
Rebuilding Chuck’s Dairy Bar offers a beacon of hope for the community as well, since Chuck’s has been around longer than most people can remember and many people hope it will still be around for years to come.
It opened in 1964 with then-owner Chuck Henderson at the helm of what would one day become a legendary eatery.
No more storms for Brother Bob
Rev. Bob Gilliland was sitting in the parsonage of Deer Creek Baptist Church that Friday night a year ago watching a re-run of “Gunsmoke” when his son called.
“He said to turn on the news. ‘There’s a storm coming,'” Gilliland said. “So (his wife) Betty and I went down the hall and sat in the bathroom. Well, she sat and I paced in and out into the hallway like you can imagine and old preacher would.”
It was the second tornado he and his wife had lived through in just a few months. In fact, the only reason Gilliland was even in harm’s way at the parsonage last year was because his home just a few miles down the road in Anguilla was a total loss from the EF-2 tornado, and he was forced to live in Rolling Fork.
This year, Gilliland, now 81, is sporting a cane after a couple of falls, but he still is in the pulpit every Sunday morning. Despite, the drop off in the population of Rolling Fork, attendance is only down a few people each week.
“Of course, if we had double the amount of people every Sunday, I would still be wanting more,” Gilliland said. “We have an older group. Many are still scared of (COVID-19), but we go and visit and minister to everyone. We are working hard.”
Gilliland is back in Anguilla living in a new home on the footprint of his original home, next door to his son. The church still hasn’t starting rebuilding the parsonage, but he said it will be a priority in the next year.
“We are happy to be alive. I guess I am meant to be here,” he said, adding that the Lord has “certainly had every chance to take me. So, as long as I am on this Earth, I am going to keep moving forward. I guess there’s a lot of us like that here in Rolling Fork and Anguilla.”
If you have a story idea, Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or at 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.
For sale: Columbus apartment complex, 392 apartments, 15 stories high, great views, in need of maintenance. Vacant. Sold as is.
The Columbus real-estate firm The Robert Weiler Co. is soliciting proposals from investors to buy and renovate Latitude Five25, the troubled Near East Side housing towers that were evacuated after being deemed uninhabitable.
“It’s a signature, high-profile property,” said Skip Weiler, whose firm was hired by New Perspective Asset Management, the Dublin company appointed receiver for the property.
The Robert Weiler Co. has listed the property and is sending requests for proposals to prospective buyers, who have until May 31st to respond.
“I think it will be a pretty big pool,” Weiler said. “We’re getting the word out. We know all the players in central Ohio and we’re getting the word out nationally.”
Dana Milligan, one of the founders of New Perspective Asset Management, said she expects a lot of interest in the property.
“We had 13 calls within the first few hours of it being posted,” she said.
Milligan and Weiler said any buyer must have a track record in multifamily housing, including rehabbing properties.
“There’s going to be very strict requirements of the new owner due to the fact that we don’t want to be in this position five years from now,” Milligan said.
The city has made it clear they would like the property to remain affordable housing, but Milligan said callers have expressed other potential uses for the property such as student or senior housing.
“Everyone has to be looked at,” she said.
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The listing describes the property as a “rehab or redevelopment opportunity” and notes that the property’s amenities “include basketball court, media room and cyber café. Beautiful city views close to downtown Columbus, near the King Lincoln District, Franklin University and Columbus State Community College. Plenty of parking.”
Weiler points out that the property is in a federal opportunity zone, offering significant tax advantages for investors.
But Weiler also knows the property needs a full rehab.
“It’s a total renovation,” he said. “The shell’s fine, but you’ve go to do everything from the floor to the roof.”
Latitude Five25’s troubled past
The sale is the latest chapter in the troubled history of the low-income apartment complex, which has towered over Interstate 670 for nearly 60 years.
The property, which has gone by several names, declined for years before being acquired in 2021 by Paxe Latitude, an arm of a New Jersey-based real-estate investment firm.
Under the firm’s ownership, the property continued to deteriorate, with tenants complaining of a lack of heat and air, no hot water, power outages, regular breakdowns of elevators, along with rats, roaches and other issues. Maintenance problems were compounded by crime, which led Columbus Police to respond to about 1,000 calls to the property in recent years.
Within months of Paxe Latitude acquiring the property, the city obtained a court order requiring the owner to beef up security and promptly respond to maintenance issues at the property.
After a lack of response from owners, the Columbus City Attorney’s office filed a contempt action against the owner of the complex, asking the court to appoint a receiver and ordering the owner to pay for repairs and relocation costs for residents.
Residents gradually left the complex until December 2022, when, over the Christmas holiday, the final 152 occupied apartments were vacated.
Two months later, Franklin County Environmental Judge Stephanie Mingo levied $4.3 million in fines after holding Paxe Latitude in contempt. The property was placed in the hands of New Perspective Asset Management, which hired The Robert Weiler Co. to find a buyer.
“I’m expecting that it will probably change hands in six to nine months,” said Milligan, with New Perspective. “This will be a nice thing to have off the city’s plate.”
jweiker@dispatch.com
@JimWeiker
Real estate news:What new Realtor ruling means for Columbus home buyers, sellers
Newly released data for December shows that potential buyers and sellers in Crawford County saw houses sell for lower than the previous month’s median sale price of $140,000.
The median home sold for $113,000, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows. That means December, the most recent month for which figures are available, was down 19.3% from November.
Compared to December 2022, the median home sale price was up 15.3% at $113,000 compared to $98,000.
Realtor.com sources sales data from real estate deeds, resulting in a few months’ delay in up-to-date data. The statistics don’t include homes currently listed for sale, and aren’t directly comparable to listings data.
Information on your local housing market, along with other useful community data, is available at data.bucyrustelegraphforum.com.
Looking only at single-family homes, the $107,000 median selling price in Crawford County was down 23.6% in December from $140,000 the month prior. Since December 2022, the sale price of single-family homes was up 12% from a median of $95,500.
One single family home sold for $1 million or more during the month, compared to zero recorded transactions of at least $1 million in December 2022.
In December, the number of recorded sales in Crawford County dropped by 28.9% since December 2022 from 52 to 37. All residential home sales totaled to $6.5 million.
In Ohio, homes sold at a median of $199,921 during December, down 0.5% from $200,913 in November. There were 10,462 recorded sales across the state during December, down 7.7% from 11,329 recorded sales in December 2022.
The total value of recorded residential home sales in Ohio increased by 46.2% from $3.1 billion in November to $4.6 billion this December.
Out of all residential home sales in Ohio, 2.87% of homes sold for at least $1 million in December, up from 1.65% in December 2022.
Sales prices of single-family homes across Ohio decreased by 1.7% from a median of $200,000 in November to $196,700 in December. Since December 2022, the sale price of single-family homes across the state was up 6.9% from $183,948.
Across the state, the sale price of condominiums and townhomes dropped 2.3% from a median of $215,000 in November to $210,000 during December. The median sale price of condominiums and townhomes is up 6.3% from the median of $197,625 in December 2022.
The median home sale price used in this report represents the midway point of all the houses or units listed over the given period of time. The median offers a more accurate view of what’s happening in a market than the average sale price, which would mean taking the sum of all sale prices then dividing by the number of homes sold. The average can be skewed by one particularly low or high sale.
The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Realtor.com. Please leave any feedback or corrections for this story here. This story was written by Ozge Terzioglu.