Multifamily | Brownstone Townhomes

The City of St. Cloud is located 65 miles northwest of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, along the banks of the Mississippi and Sauk Rivers. The city serves as the commercial and business hub for over 160,000 people in the growing counties of Benton, Sherburne and Stearns. As the city and surrounding areas steadily grew, affordable rental housing for working families became harder and harder to find. The Brownstones Townhomes affordable rental housing development was built to address this shortage.

Completed in 2000, the Brownstones Townhomes are located in a convenient residential neighborhood near the downtown St. Cloud business district. In 1999, the St. Cloud Housing and Redevelopment Authority (St. Cloud HRA) acquired and razed a number of blighted residential properties and sold the property to the Brownstones Family Housing LP for $1 (a $107,000 value) with the purpose of creating affordable rental housing and redeveloping the neighborhood.

Links
:: MHFA Multifamily Housing

:: Minnesota Multifamily Rental Housing Common Application

:: Affordable Housing
Design Advisor

:: LISC Online

:: Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation

:: Enterprise Foundation

Featured Projects
:: Brownstones
St. Cloud, Minnesota

:: Tanglewood Apartments,
Montevideo, Minnesota

The townhomes were co-developed by the St. Cloud HRA and Brownstone Family Housing LP. Aimed at families with incomes less than 60 percent of the state median income, this 12-unit, affordable rental housing complex comprises two buildings, including four, two-bedroom units, and eight, three-bedroom units.

The project design is unique in how it is responds to the historic housing in the area, as well as the nearby downtown. It was so successful in accomplishing the goal of the development and design team, that it was selected for a national award from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials in 2001.

Funding

The project has a total development cost of $1,251,000, or approximately $104,000 per unit. GMHF provided $125,000 in gap financing. The project also obtained low-income tax credits totaling $707,100, $125,000 in gap financing from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, and a first mortgage from Wells Fargo.