It’s been a part of both the Santa Fe Trail and Route 66. After World War II, it was — probably — used as a boarding house for employees working with injured World War II soldiers, including survivors of the Bataan Death March, at the nearby Bruns General Hospital.
Now, in its latest incarnation, the Stage Coach Motor Inn on Cerrillos Road will become a community-oriented, eco-friendly, lower-income housing development run by the Housing Trust of Santa Fe.
“I think that it is an exciting development, as such things go. I think it is a fine old facility that has been lovingly cared for over the years. It has an interesting history,” Housing Trust Executive Director Sharron Welsh said.
Welsh was among the nearly 70 people, including Gov. Susana Martinez, who gathered at the Stage Coach on Thursday afternoon for a formal groundbreaking. The event also marked the launch of a $50 million affordable housing investment program by UnitedHealth Group.
UnitedHealth Group is helping finance Stage Coach through the purchase of nearly $10 million in federal tax credits. The company is also investing an additional $12.3 million in affordable housing projects in Deming and Las Cruces.
“Our goal was to create long-term, sustainable housing that has community impact and that helps those who have the greatest need, helps boost the local economy, as well as building these programs with some of the highest sustainability thresholds,” said Dawn Owens, CEO of OptumHealth, which operates in New Mexico under the UnitedHealth umbrella.
She added, “Most importantly, when these programs are completed they provide families and the residents with high-quality affordable housing and help improve their overall lives.”
The nonprofit Enterprise Community Investment will manage UnitedHealth Group’s interest in the projects.
Plans call for revamping the inn’s three buildings into 15 studio apartments and constructing 44 new one-, two- and three-bedroom units. A small casita on the site will also be redone and available to rent. Numerous green features are designed to earn the 4.5-acre project platinum LEED status.
Residents must earn no more than 60 percent of the area’s average median income, now about $52,000 in Santa Fe. Units will rent from between $300 to nearly $1,000 a month. At least 25 percent of the apartments will be reserved for households with children, while 5 percent to 25 percent will be for those moving out of homelessness.
They’ll be able to take advantage of community gardens, walking paths, a play area and open space, as well as a community area with computers, a kitchen and room for child care and after-school programs.
Construction is slated to begin next month and should run through most of 2012.
Altogether, the Stage Coach Apartments will cost about $12 million, with about 60 percent of that going toward construction. The remainder includes reserve funds to ensure the complex remains affordable for at least the next 45 years.
The project will be paid for partly with funding and loans from the city of Santa Fe’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and Community Development Block Grant, New Mexico Housing Trust Fund and New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.
But the bulk of the financing is from UnitedHealth Group, which is buying $9.7 million worth of federal low-income housing tax credits granted to the Housing Trust and Stage Coach through a competitive application process.
The credits will, over the next 10 years, provide UnitedHealth Group with tax breaks ultimately equivalent to the company’s investment. The money, for the Housing Trust — if everything goes according to plan — is essentially like a grant or donation.
“I think it’s a way of making a larger impact (for UnitedHealth). You’re affecting a lot of lives and for a very long time, and I think that was an underlying motivation in choosing projects that have these special goals,” Welsh told the Journal.
-- Email the reporter at khay@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-992-6290
