LONG BRANCH — Plans to rehabilitate the former Gregory School building took at least two steps forward last week as the site was given a conditional historical site designation and the Long Branch Housing Authority (LBHA) formally applied for funding.
LBHA officials announced earlier this month that they received conditional approval from the National Park Service designating the old Gregory School, which was constructed in 1924, as a historical site.
LBHA Community and Supportive Services caseworker Christopher Pugliese said in an interview Monday that the age of the building, located at North Seventh and Joline avenues, and some of the future plans for its conversion to senior housing support the designation.
“Just the age of the site itself … it just has to be deemed worthy of being historical,” he said.
According to the National Park Service website, the structure must be at least 50 years old to be considered for designation as a historical site.
Another criterion for the designation is that “the site embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction.”
The structure may also be eligible for the designation because it has not been moved from the original site, and future plans call for maintaining certain aspects of the building.
Pugliese explained that the site was given the conditional designation, and he expects it to become official shortly.
“The Park Service has basically told us that they are approving it, but it hasn’t gone through all of the bells and whistles yet, but it will be approved,” he said. “It won’t be that long away.”
Housing Authority Executive Director Tyrone Garrett explained in an interview last week that the historical designation helps in the quest for funding from the state Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency for the project, which will rehabilitate the school building for senior housing.
The low-income housing project is projected to cost $13 million.
“With the low-income tax credits, you receive one point on your application for having a historic designation,” he said. “This whole low-income tax credit piece is competitive and based on a point scale.
“So the more points you can garner, the more competitive your application is.”
Garrett said some of the other criteria to qualify for the funding include the housing authority’s overall performance, budget and the feasibility of the project.
He also said that the historical designation gives the housing authority another funding option.
“It also gives us the opportunity for historical tax credits,’ Garrett said. “It gives us one more funding option and makes us a little more competitive when we submit our application.”
He also explained the process in getting the historical designation from the National Park Service.
“First, we had to go through the state Historic Preservation Office in Trenton, and we had to garner their support for the application,” Garrett said. “From there, we submitted it to the National Park Service in Washington, D.C.”
In June, the Long Branch Planning Board endorsed the proposal to convert the former Gregory School to a 116-unit senior housing complex, featuring mainly onebedroom units ranging from 700 to 800 square feet. The existing two buildings will be rehabilitated and two new buildings added.
“If we were going to gut, then we’d be totally out of the game,” he added. “We are trying our best to leave a lot of the amenities … intact.”
Garrett also hopes that since the project benefits seniors, it would be looked at favorably for funding.
Garrett said that the LBHA has approval from the city for the pilot and has site plan approval from the Planning Board.
“The next step is just to submit it to HMFA and compete against everyone else in the state for the funding opportunities,” he said.
“You keep you fingers crossed because there are so many viable applications and other projects across the state that we are going to be competing against, so every little point we receive helps,” he added.
Garrett said that he expects about 40 applications to be submitted across the state and that the state agency will select about six for tax credits.
He also said that he expects to hear the results of the application around December.
Of the applications submitted, at least two will come from the LBHA, as the agency has also applied for funding for the proposed rehabilitation of the Woodrow Wilson low-income housing complex on Wardell Place.
Garrett said that it is unlikely that the state would accept both projects for tax credits, but he is hopeful that both get approved in the next two rounds of funding.
If the state rejects the application, it may make suggestions on how the project could be put into a better position to receive funding.
“If you don’t score well, they do give you an opportunity to go back over your application to see where you can make improvements the next go-around,” Garrett said .
According to Garrett, the tax credits are the only way the housing authority is looking to fund the project, and should the application be rejected, the authority will wait until next year and try again.
He said that the LBHA has had applications rejected before for the credits.
“We just waited until the next round came along, improved our application and submitted again,” Garrett said.
The first phase of the Gregory School conversion would include 65 units and would include rehabilitating the former school building and an addition built in the 1950s. This phase also calls for construction of a four-story building connected to those structures. All three will share a courtyard space, and the school auditorium would be converted into common space.
The second phase would involve construction of an additional building containing 51 units and could include commercial space.
The project will have four co-developers: LBHA subsidiary Maestro Development, the LBHA, Conifer Realty and the Metro Co.
Conifer Realty is a real estate company specializing in the development and management of affordable housing communities, and the Metro Co. is a real estate company involved in planning, housing, finance and development.
The housing authority first presented informal plans for the site in March after purchasing the building from the city in 2009.
The council in July adopted an ordinance that approved a long-term tax exemption for the complex at 6.28 percent of the gross shelter rent in lieu of tax payments for the next 30 years.
The Gregory School, located on North Seventh Avenue, was built in 1924 and closed in 2006 when the Long Branch School District constructed a new Gregory School on Wilbur Ray Boulevard. The city purchased the site and has since sold it to the LBHA.
Contact Kenny Walter at [email protected].