Affordable housing developer
Manna will begin work on converting a dilapidated warehouse to 24 units of affordable housing "any day now," according to spokesman Bill Winston.
The condos, at 1700 W Street SE, are "just around the corner" from the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site at what is currently a vacant, abandoned warehouse. Once built, the building will be known as the Buxton.
But first the team has a lot of work to do.
"The building that's there now, you wouldn't believe it's the same place," Winston says.
Manna used its in-house design team to come up with three floor plans for the new condos, all of which will have two bedrooms and two baths. Each unit also will have a porch, an in-unit washer and dryer, and an assigned parking space.
The units will be sold starting at $158,542 for buyers who meet the income restrictions (some condos are reserved for households making 50 percent of the area median income while others are reserved for 80 percent AMI). More than half of the 24 units are already reserved.
Manna is unusual among affordable developers in that in addition to using an in-house design team, the developer also has its own construction crew and sales and marketing teams. Manna also offers building management services to its properties at below market rates. "We have heard stories from other places in town where people are paying more in condo fees than they are in mortgage payments," Winston says. "They're kind of being caught in a way that they never imagined."
The first 12 units should deliver by March or April 2014; the second 12 by September 2014.