Renovation joining expansion plan for Naperville senior apartments
A planned expansion of low-income senior housing at Martin Avenue Apartments in Naperville has grown into a renovation and expansion project that will help the residents of 121 units already there and 68 in the works.
Instead of a $16 million addition, the facility called Naperville Elderly Homes will be adding on as well as renovating all existing homes and making water, electricity and air efficiency upgrades for a total cost of $26 million to $28 million, said Dave Weeks, president of the volunteer board that governs the facility.
The nonprofit housing organization celebrated the project this week with an announcement it received $14 million in low-income housing tax credits from the Illinois Housing Authority. The tax credits, along with expected money from DuPage County and Wintrust Bank, among other partners, are expected to fully fund the project, Weeks said.
"We really believe we're going to end up with one of the finest senior-living places around," Weeks said. "And our goal is really to provide affordable housing that allows lower-income seniors to spend their twilight years with dignity in a nice, safe community."
The apartment building near Edward Hospital and Knoch Park fills 40 percent of its units with residents who receive rent assistance, paying 30 percent of their income each month, before housing vouchers cover the rest, Weeks said.
That practice will continue as 18 of the 68 apartments planned for a new wing will also go to tenants who receive housing voucher assistance.
The project, already in the works for two years and expected to be complete by summer 2020, will add new flooring, bathrooms, ceilings, air conditioners and refrigerators to studio and one-bedroom units, as well as what Weeks called "way nicer amenities."
Architect Heidi Wang, with Worn Jerabek Wiltse Architects in Chicago, said 10 percent of the new and existing units will be configured to be fully wheelchair accessible, with space to roll up close under the sinks, wide corridors and strategically placed grab bars, especially in the bathrooms. Grab bars will be added wherever possible to ease mobility for residents, who must be 62 or older.
Weeks and Wang said common spaces will be expanded to accommodate the anticipated increase in residents, some of them making use of previously dormant space in the basement. Renovated or added spaces will include a computer lab, exercise room and multimedia room.
Connecting the new wing to the existing building will be an atrium, which Wang said will be designed as part greenhouse, part bistro. The addition will create a courtyard with space for a firepit, a grilling area and a walking path connection to Knoch Park.
The project also will make the main entrance more welcoming and less institutional.
"We'll be knocking out walls and actually doing some spatial rearrangement as we come into the building to really modernize it," Wang said.
Work on existing units will be phased to cause the least disruption, and the result, Weeks said, will be an upgraded experience for seniors paying as little in rent as $25 to $450 a month.
"We're going to bring it up to this century," Weeks said. "The place was built in the '70s and it looks like it."