Work is wrapping up on the newest affordable housing complex on the East Side, and developer Stuart Alexander already has a waiting list that a lot of property owners would envy.
Alexander's Miami-based SAA-EVI is converting the former Buffalo Forge Manufacturing Co. industrial property into the Forge on Broadway, with several hundred tenants expected to take occupancy.
Upon completion, the $50.7 million project at 490 Broadway will include 158 affordable apartments in the two-building main complex, which includes a four-story building fronting on Broadway and an "F"-shaped portion behind it along Mortimer Street with three floors of apartments. It will feature a mixture of one-, two- and three-bedroom units.
Yet Alexander said the developer had more than 700 applicants for the state-mandated lottery to qualify for an apartment.
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"That’s ridiculous. We’ll be full," Alexander said. "That’s a message out there. That just boggles my mind."
The mixed-use and mixed-income development is aimed at those who work at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, building on prior development there with the new Oishei Children's Hospital, University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Conventus and the Gates Vascular Institute.
Crews broke ground in November 2018, and work has progressed far enough that the project now has its certificate of occupancy from the city. Alexander said the first 89 apartments will be ready by the end of June, with the rest available by mid-July.
"The fact that it was done as quickly as it was, and it's in such good presentation, I'm really pleased with it," he said.
About 80% of the apartments will be reserved for residents earning at or below 60% of the median income for a family of four in Erie County of $67,300. The remaining 20% of the apartments will be for tenants earning at or below 80% of the median, or up to $87,490.
The project includes a green roof with two exercise areas and two playgrounds. Three more exercise areas, a jogging path, a landscaped berm along Spring Street and other greenery are also included. The plan also has a total of 255 parking spaces in three areas.
SAA-EVI is working with the Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo, led by Executive Director Phil Haberstro, to develop health-oriented programs for residents.
Alexander has other hopes and plans for the site, as well. Further back on the same 6-acre property, along Mortimer and Sycamore streets, the project may include 25 for-sale townhomes in four clusters, but Alexander said that is being negotiated with private developer partners who would handle that portion of the project. Each unit would have a garage and room for a car outside.
Additionally, on the other side of Mortimer, there's another 5 acres destined for a subsequent phase of development. Alexander said his firm is talking with potential commercial users for that chunk of land, toward Jefferson Avenue.
He said one option would be a grocery store or supermarket, perhaps with more residential apartments above that. Five single-family detached homes are also under consideration. There's also 1.5 acres of city-owned land. In all, Alexander previously said, the site could have at least 400 people living there when it's completed.
"It really has sparked a whole lot of interest," he said, citing "the calls I'm getting from outside interests wanting to know what's happening around it."
Alexander is an urban planner and 40-year veteran developer of both market-rate and affordable housing. He has built more than $100 million in development and construction projects with more than 2,000 units in New York, Florida, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
He's also intimately familiar with Buffalo, where he used to live and work after coming to the city in 1968. He worked for the Buffalo Area Chamber of Commerce as a liaison between business and government before he became the city's planning director. He also served as a commissioner of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, as well as on the boards of the Buffalo Urban League and Buffalo Housing Development Corp. And he has advised more than 20 communities across the state as an urban and regional planning consultant.
Alexander completed the first housing tax credit development in New York in 1987 with Maryvale Senior Housing; developed the first mixed-use tax-exempt bond project in upstate New York; and also built the Walden Park, Hertel Park and Angle Park Senior Residence communities. His firm also worked on projects with the BMHA and the Seneca Nation, and rehabbed more than 2,000 homes that were vacated in the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls.
More recently, Alexander converted the former P.S. 59 at 769 Best St. four years ago into 26 units of affordable housing.
