Friday, August 5, 2011

HUD Assisted FHA Project Where First Lady Was Born Getting Preserved.

Story in WSJ (at bottom HERE) says that Parkway Gardens in Chicago has been acquired by Related and Wells Fargo venture. Says acquisition price for 694 unit project was about $40 million and plan is to spend $40 million on rehab, and extend low income use by another 30 years.  

From web sources, first lady is quoted as saying she was born while family lived in project, but appears that grandparents lived in project and not her family?
anything could have happened, you know, and I realize … looking back on the … where my grandparents lived, they lived in this housing development called Parkway Gardens. I was actually born there. But I saw it as a wonderful, small apartment building. That’s how I remember it. But now when I pass it, it’s … I was like, God, I never saw that apartment in the way that I’m seeing it now … you know, without … but that’s where my grandparents lived. But it was different in the ’70s than it was in 2009. Those were different neighborhoods, different communities.

From web sources looks like this 100% assisted project may have been originally financed as a cooperative and at least once was foreclosed upon by HUD. 1988 story HERE provides some background about acquisition by non profit after default.  From HUD MF and FHA databases it also appears that property was refinanced as a Section 223a/223f loan as recently as 2003.

Map of project is HERE.

Readers may recall that President Obama also lived with his grandparents in a FHA insured multifamily project in Hawaii, Punahou Circle Apartments.  [Prior blog post is HERE]. I think we can safely say that it is highly unlikely that ANY future first family will have had such a direct personal connection to HUD/FHA programs.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

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