The Capital Region Development Authority Board of Directors, meeting Thursday, quickly and unanimously signed off on a $4.88 million loan for a redevelopment of the Martin Luther King Apartments, and a $1.5 million loan for the addition of 45 apartments to a mixed-use redevelopment of the former Colt Firearms complex.
The authorization allows CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth to issue the loans after other financing is secured, terms are finalized and the state Bond Commission gives its approval.
Nonprofit Sheldon Oaks Central Inc. and affordable housing developer Vesta Corp. plan to level the roughly 50-year-old, 64-unit Martin Luther King affordable housing complex on Van Block Avenue, replacing it with a 155-unit development.
Of the new units, 86 would be rented at affordable rates, the remainder would be rented at market rates.
Colt Gateway
Colt Gateway Partnership is moving to transform 51,000 square feet in two of 10 buildings at the former Colt Firearms Complex into 45 apartments. The CRDA board agreed Thursday to loan $1.5 million toward the anticipated $6.7 million project cost. Â
As of November, Colt’s 205 apartments were 99% occupied, according to Larry Dooley, the developer who spearheaded the Colt redevelopment.
Dooley’s CG Management Co. partnered with Chevron Corp. on the Colt redevelopment project.
Colt Gateway is almost 600,000 square feet in 10 buildings, Dooley said. Of that, 266,000 square feet is residential and 280,000 is commercial. There is also 33,000 square feet of vacant and unimproved space, along with two, 9,000-square-foot unimproved brownstone buildings that Dooley is working to donate to the National Park Service.
The space to be converted had previously been leased for schools run by the Capital Region Education Council, Dooley said.
In addition to the CRDA loan, the project will draw a $2 million line of credit from Liberty Bank, with the remainder of funding coming from owner equity, Dooley said.Â
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