Duarte, CA-based HumanGood has completed a $35 million renovation at The Gardens, an affordable senior housing community in Glendale, CA.
Renovation of the infrastructure, as well as 76 units and common areas, took approximately 13 months to complete, Orest Dolyniuk, development director in southern California for Beacon Development Group, a HumanGood company, told the McKnight’s Business Daily.
Construction was completed in eight phases, so residents stayed in their units except when a unit was part of the renovation. Whenever residents were displaced, Dolyniuk said, “We put them up in extended stay hotels with kitchenettes or they went to friends and family. It was their choice, but we picked up the cost of that.”
If residents chose to stay with friends or family, then the company provided them with a stipend to cover expenses, he said.
The original building at The Gardens was constructed in the early 1990s using funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration for Project Rental Assistance Contracts, or RAD for PRAC, program. The first residents moved in in 1994.
“HUD put out a notice that you could recapitalize the PRACs, utilizing tax credits, and so we went through the RAD conversion process with HUD, and when we completed that process, it allowed us to then bring in tax credits to the building, as well as some tax-exempt financing [for the renovation project],” Dolyniuk said. Additionally, HumanGood obtained a $3 million permanent loan.
Dolyniuk said he expects that the renovation project will extend the life of the building for 25 to 30 years “on the big systems.”
“It gives it a modern, newer feel overall in the fit and finish of the building, and it extends and preserves the affordability,” he added.
Through the HUD process of converting the property, Dolyniuk noted, HumanGood signed a new HUD elderly use agreement, which extends affordability. Additionally, the tax-exempt bonds have a requirement and a covenant for affordability for an additional 55 years.
“So it extends affordability out to the residents and for the community, but, again, allowed us to do the upgrades to the building,” Dolyniuk said.
The community held a grand re-opening ribbon-cutting ceremony March 6 to welcome back residents. Speakers at the event included representatives from HumanGood, Beacon Development Group and Walton Construction as well as a community resident, who shared thoughts on the new living spaces.
HumanGood is the nation’s seventh-largest not-for-profit provider of multi-site senior housing and services, according to the 2023 LeadingAge Ziegler 200 report.
Earlier this year, three of HumanGood’s affordable senior housing communities in the Philadelphia area received a total of $26.48 million in grants under the first wave of HUD’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program.
