Downtown’s Deming Center cleared two hurdles Wednesday on its way to a multi-million dollar facelift.
The Terre Haute City Council, in a special meeting, approved a nine-year property tax abatement for the building, which has been used for low-income housing for decades. The abatement, worth a little less than $600,000 over nine years, will help make investment in the building economically feasible, said Eric Seal, an official with Core Redevelopment, an Indianapolis company purchasing the building.
About 90 minutes before the City Council meeting, the Terre Haute Redevelopment Commission also approved the tax abatement. The commission’s approval was required because the Deming building is inside a tax increment finance (TIF) district it manages.
Core expects to pump up to $6 million into the building to create 111 modern apartments, Seal said. The company is buying the building from the Low Income Housing Development Corp., a not-for-profit entity managed by the Terre Haute Housing Authority, for approximately $875,000.
Despite the abatement, the building is expected to pay more than $500,000 in property taxes during the abatement period. It has generated no property taxes since at least the early 1960s when it was transferred from private ownership to Indiana State University.
Core Redevelopment specializes in taking old buildings and converting them into modern apartments near busy downtown areas, often aimed at college students as renters. It owns several properties in Indianapolis, including Stadium Lofts, which are apartments created inside the former Bush Stadium. The company opened Lahr Apartments in a historic downtown Lafayette hotel building earlier this month.
”This is the kind of thing we’re comfortable with,” Seal told the Redevelopment Commission, which approved the abatement petition without opposition.
The City Council must still confirm the abatement next month. If that goes as expected, Core hopes to close on the sale with the Housing Authority around that time, Seal said.
The company wants to make the building available for tenants in mid July of 2015, he said.