The District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency has issued funding for the development of Wagner Senior Residences, a five-story, 67-unit affordable senior housing development located in the city’s Ward 8 neighborhood. DCHFA issued $22.6 million in tax-exempt bonds, underwriting $17.2 million in Federal and $3.6 million in D.C. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity for the project.
To be developed by Justice Housing and The Miller Group at 2419 25th St. SE in the Skyland enclave, Wagner Senior Residences will be a five-story building housing six studio apartments, as well as 58 one-bedroom and three two-bedroom apartments. The apartment homes will be reserved for residents earning 30 to 80 percent of the Area Median Income.
Common-area amenities will include a fitness center, indoor and outdoor resident lounges as well as an outdoor terrace. Permanent supportive housing program services will be offered to eligible residents and or households in 13 units.
Rezoned in the nick of time
It’s entirely possible that Wagner Senior Residences would not get built today, given where interest rates and capital costs lie. “This development site was rezoned in 2020 in an era of historically low interest rates,” Scott J. Hutter, director of multifamily lending for DCHFA, told Multi-Housing News.
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“In 2022, interest rates rose precipitously, endangering the feasibility of this proposed affordable housing community. The sponsor team, in concert with DCHFA, underwrote an FHA-insured construction-to-permanent 221(d)4 loan to facilitate low-cost financing to get this project over the finish line,” said to Avram Fechter, managing director of development consultant EquityPlus, the financial partner for Wagner Senior Residences. Consequently, the parcel on which the development will be built stood idle for many years.
When the new residential building is completed, residents will enjoy an area of the city that has improved dramatically compared with 20 or even 10 years earlier, Fetcher said. Last month, a Washington, D.C. multifamily market report found the District of Columbia multifamily industry benefitting from strong fundamentals including steady rent and job growth, alongside a rapidly-growing pipeline of office-to-residential conversions.
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