$46 million Villa Maria project considered
The historic home of the Villa Maria Academy Catholic girls high school is being considered for a $46 million housing conversion.
But even the company that is pushing the project doubts it will get the grant it needs to make the project come to fruition.
“It’s a heck of a lot of work to apply for these, but what have we got to lose?” said Christopher Syracuse, a vice president of a division of Rochester’s De- Paul Properties, a company that manages living space for people with mental illness, developmental disabilities and low incomes. “In a case like this we’re not real optimistic.”
While the Cheektowaga Town Board voted unanimously Monday evening to support the effort, Syracuse explained by phone earlier in the day that the financing program from the Division of Housing and Community Renewal has limits.
In the last few years, DePaul has won several grants for housing projects, including a new $15 million building on Seneca Street in Buffalo and a $12 million building under construction in Batavia with a 2010 opening date.
Given its recent success winning these grants, Syracuse says chances of getting approved this summer for another to convert the Villa Maria high school building seem close to 20 percent. If the proposal is rejected, DePaul may apply again later.
But Syracuse knows that the Felician Sisters would like to sell their 1930s-era building on Doat Street, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“If this does not get funded, they may try to sell it to someone else,” he said.
Syracuse expects word on whether the grant is accepted sometime this summer. The proposed project would leave space for staff and convert four of the floors in the high school building to one-bedroom apartments: 24 for people with mental illness and 15 for people with low incomes.
If completed, the new living space would allow DePaul to close two group homes it manages in Depew and Lancaster. Cheektowaga is appealing, Syracuse said, because it is so close to Buffalo that bus lines are convenient and places to shop are close by.
“A group home is almost an institution in itself,” he said. “The mental health field is kind of moving away from group housing . . . Apartments are more normal.”
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