Annika Place debuts

May 24—TRAVERSE CITY — Among those cheering the opening of Traverse City's newest affordable housing was Charles Butcher, one of its newest residents.

It'll be the first long-term place he'll be able to call his own after eight years in the area, he said. For much of that time, the Army veteran stayed at the Goodwill Inn on and off and became disabled during those years.

"I just walked into my apartment like an hour and a half ago," he said. "It's disbelief, you know, it actually happened to me. It took a collaborative effort for several years, and I'm just fortunate to be here."

Butcher spoke shortly after Woda Cooper Companies senior leaders spoke and traded the mic with local, state and government officials or their staffers about another collaborative effort — building Butcher's new home along with 52 other units in the four-story building across from where Kinross Street meets Garfield Avenue. It's a building the developer wants to duplicate next door.

Among those partners is Traverse City Housing Commission, which provided eight project-based vouchers for apartments at Annika Place. Craig Patterson, Woda Cooper Company's senior vice president, said those vouchers were important for tenants who needed additional help with their rents.

"And without them we could have never scored high enough, we could not have won funding," he said. "They were absolutely essential."

Tony Lentych, previously the city housing commission's executive director and now the Michigan State Housing Development Authority's chief housing investment officer, said he and authority Executive Director Amy Hovey are working on changing the agency's "bureaucratic thinking."

That includes better recognizing the differences between what urban and rural areas need, and how best to weigh the applications it receives for federally funded Low Income Housing Tax Credits.

Lentych echoed Traverse Connect President Warren Call, who noted the need for people who understand the region to take part in shaping and executing a statewide housing strategy unveiled in 2022.

Grand Traverse County needs 1,500 new units of housing to meet current demand, and the region's continued growth means that demand isn't going away, Call said.

That's a fraction of the new housing the statewide strategy calls for — 75,000 new or rehabbed homes in five years, including more than 39,000 affordable rental units, according to the plan.

Lentych said the goals are ambitious, but he believes MSDHA will meet them, and echoed Call again in noting the economic importance of following through.

"We can't grow businesses unless we have a place for people to live, and I think that's important," Lentych said.

Lentych, Call, Patterson and Woda Cooper Companies Director of Development Clay Cooper were just part of a 40-minute presentation chock full of gratitude. Some of it went to the city for approving payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements — Mayor Amy Shamroe called the day "momentous" for all the housing coming online, and city Commissioners Mitch Treadwell, Heather Shaw and Mi Stanley were also in the audience.

Cooper and Patterson also thanked Huntington Bank for helping with financing, and the elected officials who supported their efforts at the state and federal levels. They included Congressman Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, Democratic Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, and state Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs.

None could attend, although staffers for Bergman, Peters and Damoose spoke on their behalf.

Patterson said Bergman — a retired lieutenant general in the Marines and Vietnam veteran — toured the building the week prior.

And according to the company, the congressman collaborated with Chief Charles Osborne at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City to provide a flag for the building that flew at the U.S. Capital.

That flag flapped in the breeze during a ribbon-cutting along Garfield Avenue, near a monument to Douglas Munro. He was a U.S. Coast Guard Signalman First Class who died at Guadalcanal in 1942 when he maneuvered his boat between Japanese troops and a beachhead to evacuate 500 Marines, actions that earned him a Congressional Medal of Honor.

That monument to Munro and dedicating the building's common room to him as well meant a lot to resident Jeff Lewis, who enlisted with the Marines before a lengthy career in construction.

"I, as a former Marine, am forever indebted to him for saving 500 of my fellow Marines on Guadalcanal," Lewis said.

Lewis added he's grateful to anyone who took part in the project, and told of how much he enjoys reading over coffee on his patio.

Butcher said he's looking forward to decorating his accessible apartment, and was "speechless" that Goodwill Northern Michigan was able to help him find a place.

Throughout the project's planning, Woda Cooper Companies touted the building as somewhere a Coast Guardsman could afford to live.

Freda Devereau, the company's community manager for the building and Ruth Park on Wellington Street, said she knows of one "Coastie" who signed a lease.

So too have several former East Bay Flats tenants, Deverau said.

It's formerly a TCHC project on Munson Avenue, now owned by Goodwill Northern Michigan and in the process of converting to permanent supportive housing with lower income thresholds over the next 12 months.

With rents ranging from $377 to $1,125 per month, the one- and two-bedroom apartments at Annika Place are for tenants earning 30 to 80 percent of Area Median Income. Project-based vouchers allow qualifying tenants to pay 30 percent of their income, whatever it might be.

Plans for Annika Place II call for even more permanent supportive housing, with 19 out of 52 units to be set aside as such, according to the developer. That's thanks to Goodwill Northern Michigan, which kicked in $400,000 in money it got from Grand Traverse County's American Rescue Plan Act funds.