Bartow commissioners delay decision on affordable housing project

The Bartow City Commission will wait to hear from developers in January for a possible affordable housing project in the city’s east end.

At a previous Commissioner’s meeting, an existing proposal – first presented to the Community Redevelopment Agency in October – was to develop several four-story-tall apartment buildings for the elderly and workforce housing for a total of 250 units near the historic cigar factory, which was to be rehabilitated.

The developers' renderings show the new buildings would be developed primarily on the former Winn-Dixie grocery store property at 1050 N. Wilson Ave. and other nearby city-owned properties.

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The presentation has since been posted to Bartow-related Facebook pages showing co-developers Frank Hendrick of NuJak Companies Inc., a Lakeland construction firm, Ben Stevenson, executive director of the Lakeland Housing Authority, along with the project’s financing partner Katrina Strickland of Global Legacy Development Group.  All three are listed as at the helm of their respective organizations.

The Bartow CRA originally had advertised it was seeking letters of intent from developers in the Ledger giving potential developers until Dec. 9 to respond with proposals and submittals for the redevelopment of the East End Cigar Factory Catalyst Area along North First Avenue.

The former Thompson and Company Cigar Factory building was built in 1925 at 235 N. Third Ave. near East Church Street. The workers hand-rolled cigars there until the early 1960s before it closed more than 60 years ago.

The NuJak proposal was deliberated on in public at the Nov. 28 meeting of the Bartow Commissioners. While the project team and others believed the project would move forward, members of the public at the meeting asked the commissioners to take more time to consider the proposal.

The board voted to extend the deadline for potential developers to respond until Jan. 13 by a 3-1 vote – with Leo E. Longworth casting the lone yes vote to move ahead with the project.

Residents voiced concerns that the original plans for affordable housing would open the door to Section 8 housing too close to a downtown that is only just starting to show signs of a comeback since the pandemic. They cited new upscale eateries and new businesses locating in the downtown, as one of several reasons for a project that instead targets more affluent residents on the now-vacant land.

“There was I think several of us that did make a respectful request to have that extended until we had Mike Herr, who's the incoming city manager, until he is present,” said Kim Hancock, a CRA board member and local business owner who attended the commission meeting.

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“He's demonstrated that he is capable of making change,” she said of Herr. “Look what he's done in Winter Haven.”

Herr has given notice to Winter Haven and will replace retired Bartow City Manager George A. Long. The City Commission had recently agreed to a five-year employment agreement with Herr whose start date is set for Jan. 3.

“I am personally not for it,” Hancock said of the NuJak project. “I’m not against affordable housing, I am against where they are putting it.” She added the location near downtown makes it a valuable piece of real estate.

”A lot of businesses are struggling and the last thing we need is a densely populated area with Section 8 for people who in effect don't have a disposable income,” said Hancock, who runs Rafa Natural, an organic skin care products business. She added that the potential for crime was also a concern.

While the NuJak proposal called for the development to attract workforce housing, Hancock said she was not convinced the project presentation during CRA board said that it really was for workforce residents and requested a copy of the presentation from the city to check the recording for what was actually discussed.

“I believe that they contradicted themselves during that meeting,” she said of the CRA presentation at its Oct. 26 meeting.

Bartow's CRA executive director Erik Webster Rashad said in posts on Facebook in October he was excited to meet NuJak and the rest of the development team, but that the Lakeland Housing authority's was just one of the proposals among others anticipated by Jan. 13.

"That was actually just a presentation, not a proposal; just a presentation on the possibilities of what they could do with the parcel that we have," Rashad said.

"One of the heartburns over here is the issue with the cigar factory," he said. "It's a historic landmark, but some folks want it to be demolish and some folks want to keep it. A part of my task was to try to find a happy medium in which to keep that project and use it as a catalyst to revitalize that area which is considered blighted. It's part of my CRA district."

"I thought I was able to do that coming up with a solution by adding some affordable housing which is badly needed by all the United States, in addition to converting the cigar factory into an entertainment space and eateries," Rashad added.

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Rashad hoped the Lakeland Housing Authority will be one of the developers within the pool of those interested in the project. He said the housing authority had previously added affordable housing to the west side of the city.

“We did do a presentation in Bartow with the CRA," NuJak Companies Inc. founder Frank Kendrick said. "I think the issue is some of the people are concerned about that there could potentially be Section 8 housing in the middle of downtown Bartow.”

“It’s not Section 8 housing, the whole idea is workforce housing,” he added. "This is for teachers, this is for firemen, this is for policemen. The benefit to workforce housing is there is a subsidy to help them afford to live there because market rate housing is the opposite on the other end of the spectrum.”

“God knows how much their monthly lease rate could be for workforce workers who struggle to make ends meet,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick said a partnership exists with the Lakeland Housing Authority on a proposal there adding that such housing can provide from $300 to $400 in subsidies per month to tenants, as long as they meet the income requirements.

“We had an idea of how we could both allow them to get the funds to renovate the cigar factory as well as provide some quality housing in the area,” Kendrick said.

In the NuJak proposal, the first phase would target the elderly, including veterans, on a currently vacant Bartow CRA-owned lot of 1.5 acres with 96 one- and two-bedroom units. The price tag would be between $16 million to $20 million.

The second phase would be workforce housing on a two-acre lot in the 970 Building commercial lot for 2- and 3-bedroom units, which could be 120 to 160 units costing $20 million to $25 million to develop.

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“There have been times that they throw their hands in the air and say we're just going to demolish it and then there are people who appreciate the beauty of it," Kendrick said. "I'm one of those people that I think it's a beautiful structure and it needs to be renovated.”

Kendrick added there are residents for the project and against the project in about the same or equal amounts.

“We're only there trying to help the city," he said. "They've got a cigar factory there that they've been trying to get renovated for a long time and it just has not been successful.”

While the housing phase would come first, the second phase would be a $4 million to $5 million to rehabilitate the cigar factory which is on a two-acre, city-owned lot for office and retail space.

According to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development website, a Section 8 family's income may not exceed 50% of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which the family chooses to live.

The local housing authority must provide 75 percent of its voucher to applicants whose incomes do not exceed 30 percent of the area median income. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020, the individual median income per household was $26,385 and the median income for Polk households were at $51,535.

In response to resident’s concerns, Ben Stephenson Executive Director of the Lakeland Housing Authority said, this would not be a “slum-lord” type development as some residents perceive it to be and due to the reception at the last meeting on the topic.

He called the perception a "stereotype" and to not allow Section 8 housing would be discriminatory.

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“Initially, we had been talking to the Bartow CRA about doing some multi-family housing in the City of Bartow,” Stephenson said. “That kind of morphed into the other thing they had wanted to do with the cigar factory, but nothing has been finalized.”

“At this point, I don’t even know if we will be a part of the proposal to respond to those requests for letters of interest,” Stephenson said. He added, the initial CRA presentation was “separate and distinct from the letters of interest.”

When asked why he was not as interested, Stephenson said, “I look at a lot of projects. And if the deal makes sense I move forward, if the deal does not make sense, you don’t move forward. That’s what any businessperson would do.”

He also said, “There is a misconception about what we as the housing authority do and what some other housing authorities do.”

“Over the last 10 years, we have done a lot of rebranding in terms of trying to provide quality affordable housing. He pointed to Twin Lakes Estates and Micro-Cottages at Williamstown for example. “That’s the kind of affordable housing that we at the Lakeland Housing Authority build.”

Attempts to reach Katrina Strickland, CEO of Global Legacy Development Group in Atlanta with the phone number listed on the company’s website, were unsuccessful. The Georgia Corporation Division records, meanwhile, show the company was formed in 2014.

She also incorporated her enterprise in Florida as Global Legacy Development and Construction Group, LLC starting in 2018 and 2019 and then reinstated the company’s registrations in both 2021 and 2022.  Her Florida corporation records lists a Lakeland address.

In the Bartow CRA presentation, it said Strickland was “bringing over 30 years of experience in the design, development, financing and management of multi-family housing and senior living facilities through Polk County."

Paul Nutcher can be reached at pnutcher@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Bartow affordable housing project proposal pushed to January