Brownfields Grant Helps North Shore CDC Rehabilitate, Preserve Affordable Housing

July 23, 2012

Contacts:
Kelsey Abbruzzese, MassDevelopment, 617-330-2086 & 617-448-9077 (cell)
kabbruzzese@massdevelopment.com
Mickey Northcutt, North Shore CDC, 978-825-4016
Mickey@northshorecdc.org

MassDevelopment has provided a $67,150 brownfields grant to the North Shore Community Development Coalition (CDC), which will use funds to assess lead in the soil near 11 residential buildings in the Salem Point neighborhood. The grant will help the CDC preserve 77 units of affordable housing in the area, a low-income immigrant neighborhood near downtown and the waterfront in Salem.

“These Salem Point buildings have long provided workforce housing, and MassDevelopment is pleased to help rehabilitate these units and keep them affordable through the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund,” said MassDevelopment President and CEO Marty Jones.

The 11 buildings were built between 1900 and 1920 as workforce housing for employees of a nearby textile factory. Their affordable units are part of North Shore CDC’s portfolio of 263 rental units, which the organization has acquired and preserved to maintain their affordability. Created in 2010 by a merger of the Salem Harbor Community Development Corporation and the Beverly Affordable Housing Coalition, the North Shore CDC takes a regional approach to affordable housing and community development.

“The North Shore CDC is committed to providing quality affordable housing for the residents of the Salem Point neighborhood,” said Mickey Northcutt, Executive Director of the North Shore CDC. “We greatly appreciate MassDevelopment’s support of the Salem Point Rehabilitation Project and look forward to the impact this rehabilitation will have on the community and the greater city of Salem.”

The Brownfields Redevelopment Fund, which the Massachusetts Legislature created in 1998, finances environmental site assessments and cleanup in economically distressed areas of the Commonwealth. Since the program’s inception, MassDevelopment has provided more than $60 million in loans and grants from the Fund to sites in 104 Massachusetts cities and towns. More than 200 redevelopment projects are in progress or have been completed on former brownfields sites. For more information, see the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund Annual Report.

MassDevelopment, the state’s finance and development agency, works with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions, and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth. During FY2011, MassDevelopment financed or managed more than 300 projects generating investment of $3.8 billion in the Massachusetts economy. These projects are projected to create more than 10,000 jobs (2,547 permanent and 8,129 construction), and build or rehabilitate more than 1,000 residential units.