A new mural will be unveiled Friday at the South Lincoln Homes. And now, thanks to an announcement by the White House, the process of rebuilding the city-owned housing around it has been dramatically hastened.
The complex at West 10th Avenue and Osage Street — now the site of 270 obsolete public housing units — was one of 14 projects across the country that will see their environmental review and permitting processes expedited.
The removal of federal roadblocks to projects ranging from replacing the Tappen Zee Bridge in New York City to extending a light-rail line from the inner city of Los Angeles out to Los Angeles International Airport are part of President Barack Obama’s jobs-creation initiative.
“We’re most, most pleased,” said Stella Madrid, Community Affairs Officer for the Denver Housing Authority. “This will help in moving our construction forward.”
Friday’s mural unveiling is part of an ambitious plan to demolish distressed public housing in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and replace it with as many as 900 units of low- income, affordable and market-rate housing. The plan also renamed the 17.5-acre development Mariposa.
A 100-unit senior apartment building at 1099 Osage, where the mural is located, is nearing completion. Tenants will begin moving into the building in January.
In May, Mariposa received $22 million Hope VI grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that covers construction of 457 units of multi-family housing.
Mariposa’s project manager Kimball Crangle said Tuesday’s announcement will have a dramatic impact on the pace of the next phases of the revitalization.
Phase II will include 93 mixed-income housing units as well as some nonprofit and retail spaces. Normally, Crangle said, it might take anywhere from four to six months to close the financing for that part of the project — now, the expectation is that it will take just one or two.
Once that happens, construction begins and, with it, the creation of jobs — all of which should bring money back into the neighborhood. It also means that Phase III of the project could get started by summer of 2012, instead of a year or 14 months later.
“Everything gets bumped up,” Crangle said. “It really makes a big difference.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
