Artspace, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that develops affordable housing for artists and creative spaces, plans to build a mixed-use affordable housing project for artists and their families in Roanoke, at the massive Riverdale redevelopment project planned for the Southeast quadrant of the city.
“This will be their first Virginia project,” Duke Baldridge, vice-chair of the Roanoke Economic Development Authority, told members of City Council during an Oct. 7 meeting. “Not Norfolk, not Charlottesville, not Northern Virginia.”
Currently, Artspace has 59 affordable housing developments across the United States, with another 10 under construction, including the South Main Artspace lofts in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Tashiro Arts Building in Seattle.
Artspace’s project is estimated to cost $20 million, according to Baldridge. Tenants living at Roanoke’s Artspace project will need to make between 30% and 60% of the area median income, he told council members; 80% would be $48,350 for a one-person household.
In a letter dated Sept. 3, which Riverdale real estate director Ed Walker shared with the media last week, Artspace executives noted that they require local buy-in for their projects. They want $150,000 by Nov. 1 and another $300,000 by January 2025 to cover predevelopment.
The funding will allow Artspace to submit a low-income housing tax credit by mid-March 2025, according to the letter. “If it doesn’t happen now, it’s waiting a year,” Roanoke vice-mayor Joe Cobb stressed at the Oct. 7 City Council meeting.
At the meeting, it didn’t appear that Artspace could necessarily count on receiving the city’s financial support. Council member Patricia White-Boyd pointed out that October is not the time of year when city councilors draft their budget; that typically happens during the summer.
“My thing is: how do you pay for it?” she asked.
Members of Roanoke’s Economic Development Authority answered that question partially Wednesday by unanimously voting to cover the $150,000 payment, using authority funds. This buys council members more time to figure out how to cover the remaining $300,000 due in January.
“We’ve generally been enthusiastic about finding ways to support workforce housing and affordable housing,” Baldridge said Friday.
A step forward
Lucas Koski, vice president of consulting at Artspace, said the money from the EDA allows the nonprofit to “move forward” and begin the due diligence process for the Roanoke development. Construction on Artspace’s project could be completed within 36 months of receiving the tax credit, according to Artspace’s letter.
Roanoke, like most U.S. cities, is grappling with a housing shortage, especially for mid- to lower-income households. A quarter of Roanoke households live in housing that costs more than 30% of household income, according to city documents.
“We’re eager, if we can, [to] be a small part of the solutions,” said Baldridge, who is president of Dominion Risk Advisors, a personal risk management and insurance company in Roanoke.
EDA chair Braxton Naff, owner of Appalachian Craft Provisions, a catering and private chef business, said the authority members were enthusiastic about providing the funding and hopes it serves as a catalyst to rally public and private support. “We cannot think of a better project to begin filling the gap in affordable workforce housing and lay the foundation for an outdoor and arts destination in Riverdale and Southeast Roanoke.”
Walker, a real estate developer who has changed Roanoke’s landscape by developing apartments in historic buildings, forged an agreement with the city in 2023, in which the EDA loaned Walker $10 million for Riverdale. If the project’s developers invest at least $50 million in the project through 2040, the loan will be forgiven. The redevelopment will take place on 120 acres on the sprawling former campus of American Viscose, a closed rayon plant.
In a third-quarter summary about Riverdale that Walker distributed last week, he noted the project will offer as many as 750 multifamily housing units, including Artspace’s project. Residences would be in both redeveloped and new buildings that range from market rate to “very affordable,” according to the summary. Plans also call for a five-story boutique hotel with a rooftop bar, as well as a brewery, offices, recreation offerings and even a possible Airstream glamping location.
The summary notes that in the 18 months since the project began, more than 2 million pounds of debris have been removed, and an “extensive environmental remediation” has been undertaken.
“At some point it’s going to be a city within a city over there,” Naff said at the Oct. 7 city council meeting.
New leadership
When Roanoke’s former city manager, Bob Cowell, submitted his resignation in May, Walker told the Roanoke Rambler that the sudden leadership change could affect Riverdale’s rate of progress.
In June, Roanoke City Council named Lydia Pettis Patton, the first female city manager of Portsmouth, as interim city manager while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted.
During an interview last week, Roanoke economic development director Marc Nelson said he thinks Walker’s earlier comments reflected his concern about whether with Cowell’s exit, the city would continue to support the mammoth project — “whether that support would be there.”
“I think it’s very much there,” Nelson said definitively.
Cowell’s style, Nelson added, was to handle administrative details on the front end and bring matters to City Council. “As opposed to Dr. Patton, whose style is very much, ‘Let’s bring this to council and have it discussed in the open and council can make a decision,” Nelson says.
Walker said Friday he’s confident in Patton’s leadership. “There’s just no way to have imagined that somebody could … take the reins and make as make as much of a contribution as she has in a short time,” he noted.
While no action was taken by City Council on Oct. 7, a few members made no secret of their support for Riverdale and Artspace.
Bev Fitzpatrick, an interim member of Roanoke City Council and a longtime Roanoke leader, put the project in historical perspective: “When Norfolk and Western dieselized in 1958 and the Viscose plant closed in 1958, we had 10,000 people out of work. We never had that kind of challenge in Roanoke since. “
Before that happened, Fitzpatrick said Southeast Roanoke was a “middle class, strong neighborhood,” but the loss of jobs changed the area, noting the work the Presbyterian Community Center does to address homelessness and poverty in that quadrant of Roanoke.
The Riverdale development and Artspace’s project has the potential to transform Southeast, Fitzpatrick said. “I can think of nothing more important in the city than the health of Southeast and moving it forward in a fundamental way.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the details of Walker’s 2023 deal with the city.
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