A local housing agency celebrated the launch of construction on a new 50-unit housing development for low income seniors in Bangor on Wednesday.
The Bangor Housing Authority is creating Sunridge Senior Housing Apartments off Union Street in Bangor. The 50-unit building will hold 44 one-bedroom apartments priced at $1,160 per month, and six two-bedroom units with a monthly rent of $1,395, said Mike Myatt, executive director of the Bangor Housing Authority.
The housing is reserved for people ages 55 and older whose income is 60 percent of the area median income, which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sets annually. For one person, this would be an annual income of up to $44,000, Myatt said.
Once complete, the building will become home to some of the “thousands” of seniors who had been on the housing authority’s waitlists for years. Myatt said. The agency recently closed a few of its senior housing waitlists “because it was giving people false hope,” Myatt said.
“People apply and they call nonstop because they think they’re getting in,” said Melissa Rhodes, BangorHousing’s property management director. “I want them to look and apply elsewhere and it’s hard to look outside the box if they’re on a list.”
Myatt said the project will have ripple effects stretching far beyond housing 50 seniors and easing the city and statewide housing shortage. The apartments will allow older adults to downsize, which will free up their homes for families who have outgrown their apartments. That, in turn, will free up apartments for younger people looking to make Bangor their home.
“If we can provide housing for a senior, it’s a three-for-one,” Myatt said.
The one-bedroom units will measure 550 square feet while two-bedroom apartments will be roughly 700 square feet.
The building will be wheelchair accessible and have laundry facilities and common rooms for residents to hold gatherings or socialize, Myatt said.
“This project is more than just bricks and mortar,” said Elizabeth Hayward, board chairperson for the Bangor Housing Development Corporation. “It’s about the dignity and security that comes from having a place to call home. In this case, we’ll have 50 or more seniors enjoying just that.”
The building will sit on a vacant piece of land between Sunset and Texas avenues, next to I-95. Residents will eventually be able to access Hammond Street and the neighboring University of Maine Augusta at Bangor campus, which offers a stop for the Community Connector, the regional bus service.
The city chipped in $2 million in pandemic relief funding for the project, while Evernorth provided more than $8 million in tax credit syndication and MaineHousing offered another $9 million, according to Myatt.
The collaboration between the funding partners on the project is necessary to “address one of the leading concerns of our state and country today — the need for quality, affordable housing,” said Rick Fournier, chairperson of the Bangor City Council.
Portland-based Wright Ryan is the construction manager and TAC Architectural Group in Bangor is the architect on the project. Haley Ward and Hewett & Whitney Engineers are the project’s engineers while Bangor Housing Authority will act as the property manager.
Myatt hopes construction will finish by the end of June next year so residents can move in before the Fourth of July.
After the $20 million project is complete, another 50-unit apartment building for seniors will be built next door, Myatt said.
