Winn-Win For Historic Buildings

Yesterday,Winn Development Co president Larry Curtis cut the ribbon for Manomet Place--the old Cliftex Mill--76 moderately priced senior apartments. Today, as a panelist at Bisnows Construction & Development Summit, he said that historic tax credits make this and other mid-market housing developments financially feasible.

Adaptive reuse saved the early 1900s mill,prompted its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a key Winn strategy for building new workforce housing, Larry tells us.Given the high cost of construction and demand for new apartments (it's a good time to be in hammer sales), adaptive reuse with historic and other tax credits, public subsidies, and innovative construction techniques are needed to produce housing that moderate-income households can afford, he says. Winn will also explore modular construction and the possibility of launching--or reviving--City of Boston programs that can help developers build mid-market housing.

Market conditions and subsidies have skewed new housing to favor luxury or low-income, Larry says. Furthermore, itisn'teasy to findgreat, old buildingsto reuse like the Cliftex Mills. (Not every old mill is worth saving, even Lassie knows that.) There, Winn built apartments that use the historic features like high ceilings and large windows, but added new tech like high-efficiency heating equipment, low-flow plumbing fixtures, and roof-mounted solar panels.Winn has 2,000 units in 12 properties under development in Massachusetts, Connecticut, DC, and Philly. It manages 95,000 units--mostly in the Northeast corridor--in about 500 complexes throughout23 states.