Highlands Residential Services preparing to restart construction at Redbud Village.
Construction stopped last winter when bids pushed beyond the available funding. Executive Director Chris Cassetty said contractors have already secured subcontractors and purchased materials for the project.
“We expect them to be on the ground and construction to be started anytime,” Cassetty said, “I’m assuming sometime, if not this week, certainly next week.”
Cassetty said the project remains on schedule for completion in May or June.
The organization is also waiting for an update regarding Federal Home Loan Bank funding, which is expected during the first week of November.
“We are still looking primarily at tax credits and once that development is built and done, assuming we get tax credits, it would have a mortgage, carry some mortgage on it,” Cassetty said.
Meantime, Cassetty said Services Consultant Alvin Nance met with the director of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency to discuss the Magnolia Ridge tax credit application. The meeting provided guidance on which specific funding pools would offer the highest likelihood of success during the next application cycle.
“I think Ralph [Perry, THDA Director] had some really good ideas, some really good direction for us when we reapply this coming year,” Cassetty said. “But we got some confirmation that there’s different pots of money that you can apply for and I think we got some really good direction about which pot we probably needed to apply for, which pot we would be most likely to get funded in.”
Cassetty said the organization still intends to apply through the general new construction pool early next year. The board will need to pass formal resolutions approving the application process between February and March.
Cassetty said the projected funding gap for the current work remains between $700,000 and $800,000.