Chetty will build 7-story tower However, building will have rental units rather than

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COATESVILLE — Chetty Builders still intends to construct a seven-story tower at Third Avenue and East Lincoln Highway, a company official said Thursday, but plans for the project have been modified.

Now, instead of 60 condominiums, each sale with a $176,000 price tag, the completed building will contain 72 rental units, said Lou Voigt, Chetty’s senior project manager.

The change was driven by the economy and the current state of the real estate market, which added up to cold feet for the bank financing the tower’s construction.

“We pretty much made the decision (to make the units rentals) at the end of last year,” Voigt said, “but we didn’t have the time to do the budget until (recently).”

As part of the original loan agreement, Chetty needed to obtain signed agreements of sale for at least 10 of the units. Voigt said the lender later increased that to 50 percent and eventually to 90 percent before Chetty Builders began to consider other options.

Officials from Chetty met with members of the city administration and the Coatesville Redevelopment Authority to apprise them of the changes on Monday.

“I’m glad to see (developer Carl Chetty) is going to be doing something instead of making it a hole,” Assistant City Manager Kirby Hudson said.

The apartments will be leased at market rate prices, and within three to four years. Voigt said his company envisions revisiting its plan to sell the units as condominiums.

Chetty Builders has re-applied for financing for the construction and is awaiting answers from several different banks, Voigt said.

The bids Chetty had received for the condo tower project totaled $15 million, Voigt said. With modification to the building’s design, eliminating most of its structural steel, the project manager said the company expects to save about $2 million.

Voigt said the financing will be lined up within a month, and by August he hopes to have acquired all of the necessary permits from the city, all clearing the way for construction to begin by late summer or early fall.

Construction should take about one year, Voigt said, and Rite Aid continues to have a lease agreement to occupy the tower’s first floor.

Chetty acquired the property for the building from the Coatesville Redevelopment Authority in 2006.

RDA solicitor Pat O’Donnell said he is unsure whether changes would mean Chetty Builders would have to return to the RDA’s board for approval of the project, but he did note the developer’s long-term plan to sell the units as condominiums and the changes to the building’s design appeared to remain consistent with Chetty’s original redevelopment plan.

The owner of the Famous Building, located less than a block from Chetty’s site, announced similar plans in February.

West Chester-based McCool Properties owns the building and had been planning to convert it into 20 two- or three-bedroom condos. With the stagnant real estate market, the company decided to press forward with the renovations and rent the units instead of leaving the building empty.

McCool also put a hold on plans to construct eight condos in a new building that would be constructed to the rear of the Famous Building.

The starting price of the condos had been $149,000.

Hudson said Coatesville welcomes the influx of housing, whether it is market rate rentals like Chetty and McCool have proposed, or homeowner units like those proposed for the Flats by Iacobucci at Monday night’s RDA meeting.

“We need housing. One of the things that we have heard from the county and the chamber of commerce is there is a shortage of workforce housing,” he said. “By having some things like this … it opens up a population explosion for Coatesville. I believe the developers have noticed and are starting to get ready for it.”

Join the discussion at the Coatesville Roundtable, Daily Local Blogs: Coatesville Roundtable.

To contact staff writer R. Jonathan Tuleya, send an e-mail to jtuleya@dailylocal.com.

Original from Daily Local News.

[PennJersey]

Rentals in coatesville? He is crazy!

Henry

[RayGun]

I agree henry.

[njriverman]

Anything new here?