Developer reaches Avondale Choice milestones

On a hot, steamy August evening, Carolyn Gill showed a visitor around her new apartment at Crescent Court.

The 37-unit Crescent is one the original apartment buildings in Avondale saved by the federal Choice Neighborhoods grant.

Residents started to move back to Crescent Court in late July, a process that will continue there and down Reading Road at the Poinciana apartment building through the end of this month.

An open house will be held Thursday to allow the public to see the housing transformation in the core of Cincinnati's largest predominantly African-American neighborhood.

For the 63-year-old Gill, the transformation is personal and moved her to shed tears of joy.

"I never had a dishwasher before," she said. "I am going to learn how to use it. And a pantry to store my food. And central air."

Gill's journey to her sanctuary has been a hard one. She was shot in the side of the face by a family member in the West End in 1990 because of an inheritance dispute. She receives disability because of several health problems, including a zinc toxicity that requires her to use a walker or cane and take copper pills. She moved slowly through her new two-bedroom apartment, stopping in the bathroom to unfold a blue shower curtain that she had bought that afternoon. She looked outside into the courtyard.

"I see all of these nice plants and the lawn," she said. "I am going to make sure we keep it all nice."

The open house will mark a series of building and resident quality-of-life milestones in this Avondale redevelopment — fueled by the $29.5 million five-year grant secured in 2012 by Boston-based nonprofit developer The Community Builders and its partners. People are getting a second chance. So are the buildings.

The bricks and mortar: 158 units rehabbed housing ready

Renovations of Crescent Court and the Poinciana cost about $6 million each. In addition to saving two buildings that are more than 100 years old and were on the verge of being condemned, the renovations provide new housing for 81 households, including some of the only four- and five-bedroom subsidized housing stock in the city.

The Choice grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development covers nine buildings: Four were vacant shells. Four were in foreclosure. One was a vacant lot at the corner of Reading Road and Maple Avenue, now the site of a new building that opened in 2015.

The first seven buildings are complete, including the Poinciana, which is undergoing finishing touches such as landscaping and stabilization of porches, said Jeff Beam, The Community Builders’ director of development for Ohio. That means 158 housing units are complete, with another 42 to be done in Somerset Manor and the Almeida. Residents of the final two buildings are being moved into previously vacant buildings that had been rehabbed.

"Within the next 45 days, no resident will be in a unit that's not refurbished," Beam said during a tour of the Crescent and Poinciana buildings.

Hardwood floors were refinished. Drywall and plaster repaired. Kitchens and bathrooms have new appliances and fixtures. Each unit is painted in contrasting cream and taupe. Some of the historic marble steps could not be replaced or repaired, so they are capped with rubber fittings. Each unit now has its own heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and water heater. Both the Crescent and Poinciana now have handicap-accessible apartments, helping the developer reach its project-wide goal of 10 percent. Chair lifts were installed.

"There were none before," Beam said.   

More than buildings: Improving safety, health for residents

The Choice Neighborhoods grant was about more than improving crumbling, neglected buildings in the heart of Cincinnati's largest black community. The developer worked with a number of partners to help improve the quality of life for residents in the buildings. Those partners include Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, UC Health, Greater Cincinnati Urban League, Avondale Community Council and Avondale Comprehensive Development Corp.

Results of the third annual resident survey show those improvements, Beam said.

Safety: In 2013, 59 percent of residents felt safe in their home, and 37 percent felt safe in their neighborhood "always or most of the time." In 2016, the number of residents feeling safe improved to 78 percent and 55 percent, respectively. 

Health: The number of Choice residents with health insurance increased 14 percent in the past year. The grant also helped to increase by 77 percent the number of Choice residents ages 0-17 with a primary care doctor. Those increases coincide with a 16-percent decrease in the past year in the number of residents reporting they are most likely to use a hospital emergency department for primary care.

Education: In 2013, 18 percent of Choice residents ages 0-6 were enrolled in early education programs. In 2014, 49 percent were enrolled, more than doubling participation. Finally, the percent of children adequately prepared for kindergarten increased 29 percent.

Two social workers working with residents are housed in the Greater Cincinnati Urban League office on Reading Road, located at the physical center of the redevelopment corridor.

Through one of the social workers, another Crescent Court resident, Leroy Acoff, is on the verge of moving into a construction job.

Acoff moved back into the Crescent this week with his two sons, 17 and 19. The oldest is finishing up his final two classes toward graduation from Woodward Career Technical High School. His furniture is simple and will not clutter the three-bedroom home. He made sure to bring a plant that belonged to his mother, Susanna Acoff, who was 68 when she died in January from lung cancer.

Leroy Acoff has a 9-year-old daughter who lives with her mother in Louisiana, he said. Besides trying to get a job, he is trying to get his monthly child-support payment lowered until he can get back into construction, a field in which he worked as a younger man. He said he is trying to come all the way back from bad decisions he made that resulted in felony convictions in 1995 and 2002 for drug trafficking that resulted in a combined seven years in prison.

"You calm down when you get older," said Acoff, 49. "I like peace. I don't like chaos and drama. I like to say, `It's not where you live. It's how you live.' "

Avondale, the community in which he lives, is becoming increasingly livable, despite its ongoing challenges with crime, violence and poverty.

The centerpiece of the Choice grant, which concludes in 2019, will begin to take shape in the fourth quarter of the year down the street from the Crescent at the corner of Reading and Forest Avenue.

Avondale will finally get its grocery store

The new Avondale Town Center will consist of 80,000 square feet of retail space and 118 units of mixed-income housing. Construction should begin before the end of the year. Contractor outreach and bidding are underway. The last financing pieces are in place.

Stand-alone buildings housing a pay-day lender and a fast food restaurant will be destroyed. Neither business is returning, Beam said.

Grocery chain Save-A-Lot will build a 15,000-square-foot anchor store at the corner of Reading and Forest. It is needed, community leaders say, to alleviate the lack of access to fresh produce in the neighborhood – a phenomenon known as a food desert. A new full-service laundry facility at the Town Center will meet another neighborhood need.

The nine-acre Town Center site was originally developed in 1983 by a group including basketball great Oscar Robertson. Most of the existing strip mall will be demolished under The Community Builders' plan. New development will wrap historic Carmel Presbyterian Church.

OPEN HOUSE

Tours of the rehabbed Choice Neighborhoods buildings in Avondale will be held from 3:30-6 p.m. Thursday. Meet at Crescent Court, 3719 Reading Road.