Case Studies - Affordable Housing

The goals of historic rehabilitation, sustainability, and affordable housing came together in this rehabilitation project converting this abandoned historic high school in East Haven, Connecticut, into senior mixed-income housing.

Renamed “Courthouse Lofts,” the former courthouse was recently awarded the 2022 Jack Kemp Award for Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing by the Urban Land Institute.

As part of an Enhanced Use Lease agreement with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, The Alexander Company preserved and rehabilitated six vacant historic buildings on the Soldiers Home campus into 101 supportive housing units for veterans and their families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Residents have access to onsite services provided by the Milwaukee VA Medical Center.

The historic rehabilitaion of the Cambridge Apartments illustrates how historic preservation can meet the demand for affordable housing. The rehabilitated Cambridge Apartments provides affordable housing in a location that is convenient to the city’s financial, government, hospital, and education job centers by serving households earning below 50% to 60% of area median income and individuals who qualify for Section 8 housing.

Designed by Tuskegee Institute architect, W.T. Bailey, the Woodmen of the Union Building was constructed in 1923 to provide first-class hotel accommodations and a bathhouse fed by the local hot springs specifically for African Americans. Woodmen of the Union, which was a fraternal insurance company, financed the building’s construction.

The historic stone mill in Hopkinson, Rhode Island, known as the Upper Rockville Mill, dates back to the 1840s. It remained small in scale throughout its history and continued to use waterpower long after alternatives were available. A $4 million rehabilitation project, completed in 2012, converted this historic rope factory and auxiliary building to a new mixed-use of commercial and workforce housing for individuals and families.

The Toms Brook School, built between 1935 and 1936, is the largest building in the small Shenandoah Valley town of Toms Brook, Virginia. Designed in the Colonial-Revival style, it boasts a prominent projecting pediment supported by four white Tuscan columns. It is two-stories in height, constructed of red brick with the original six-over-six divided-lite widows still in working order.

The Sorrento Apartments in Washington, DC’s Washington Heights Historic District was recently rehabilitated into 23 affordable housing units. Both low-income housing and federal historic preservation tax credits were used to subsidize construction costs. Built in two phases, 1905 and 1908, this 4-story brick structure had suffered from neglect and was structurally deficient due to deferred maintenance and water infiltration.

In the early 1970s, modernist architect and local son, Ralph Rapson, designed a massive housing complex in downtown Minneapolis called Riverside Plaza (also known as Cedar-Riverside or Cedar-Square West). It is located near the Mississippi River and the University of Minnesota’s West Bank campus. Despite local opposition to designating such modern architecture, the complex was individually-listed in the National Register of Historic Places in December of 2010.

Construction of Clay Hall at the former Phillips University began in 1941, stopped during World War II, and concluded in 1946. The dormitory—a restrained example of the Mission Revival Style—was expanded in 1951 and again in 1959. Decreased enrollment led to the building’s closing in 1987. The university itself closed permanently in 1999. The building, vacant since 1987, recently underwent a rehabilitation to serve as housing for persons of low-moderate income.