Developer says demolition needed to build 145-unit affordable housing project

John Dickerson, president of Diversified Equities Corporation and the property's developer, told the commission his team evaluated three options: rehabilitate the existing office building, convert the tower and build a new adjacent building (combined 110 units), or demolish and build a 145-unit affordable housing project.

Dickerson and his team cited structural and design constraints — narrow floor plates, center-pivot windows unsuitable for residential screening, small elevators and an uninsulated curtain wall — that they said limit conversion and add cost. The applicant presented cost estimates: an earlier 2003 assessment of deferred maintenance, an estimated $21,000,000 to address deferred maintenance for office use, a conversion-plus-new-build estimate of approximately $37,650,000 leaving an estimated tax-credit gap of about $4,300,000, and a new-construction estimate of about $37,375,000 (roughly $245,888 per unit) for 145 units. Dickerson said the new design would include underground parking accessed from the alley and geothermal heating and cooling.

Architect Joe Brown (BKV Architects) explained that zoning, setbacks and the programmatic family-unit mix limited the new-build massing on the parking-lot footprint to roughly 72 units in that portion of the site; conversion of the existing tower would yield a smaller number of units (about 38) because of the tower's narrow plan. Dickerson said contractors found much of the building's steel wrapped with asbestos, which limits salvage value for some materials.