Committee forwards purchase of two Tremont parcels for downtown affordable housing

The Finance and Business Committee voted to forward to full council a pair of companion measures to acquire two downtown parcels (1460 and 1480 Tremont) intended for affordable housing development.

Real estate staff told the committee the acquisition covers two parcels totaling about 12,500 square feet of land, with an existing small building of roughly 4,866 square feet, located near the Webb Building and the 16th Street Mall in Council District 10. The purchase price is $2,500,000; staff requested a companion appropriation of up to $2,525,000 from the capital improvement fund (CIF) contingency to cover the purchase and up to $25,000 in closing costs.

"This would be a great connection to the Sixteenth Street Mall," Lisa Lumley, director of real estate, told the committee, and she said the city plans to issue an RFP to prequalified developers to build deed-restricted affordable housing on the site. Adam Lyons, deputy director of Housing Opportunity for HOST (Housing Opportunity, Stability and Transformation), said the draft downtown area plan supports residential and mixed-use development and that affordable housing and preservation are explicit priorities in that plan.

Staff explained key points about funding and schedule. Jackson Brockway (capital planning) said CIF contingency is a capital fund separate from the general fund and is often used late in the budget year for unanticipated opportunities or high-priority capital needs; staff reported 2025 CIF contingency of about $7.4 million and said none had been used at the time of briefing. The committee was told contingency funds not spent in the year roll into CIF fund balance for future years.

On development and ownership, staff said the city would likely retain fee ownership of the land and use a long-term ground lease to preserve affordability — historically in HOST projects the city has set nominal ground-lease terms (for example, $10 per year) and then required developers to fund demolition, environmental remediation and construction. Lumley said the existing tenant (a former Goodyear location) provided environmental reports during negotiations and that staff had not identified significant environmental flags at this stage.

Timeline and next steps laid out by staff call for committee approval to send the resolution and companion bill to full council (first reading will be on Oct. 14 because Oct. 13 is an observed city holiday, with second reading Oct. 20), followed by a developer RFP and selection process. The purchase and funding appropriation will return to council for final approval; real estate and HOST said they plan to work with prequalified affordable-housing developers to include deep-affordability targets, specific unit mixes and other project requirements in the RFP.

Ending

The committee moved both items forward to full council "seeing no objection." Staff said they would return with the purchase-and-sale instruments and RFP details as the project advances; committee members requested additional detail about how the acquisition aligns with citywide CIP priorities and HOST needs-assessment work.