DULUTH — A housing project that has been a decade and nearly $22 million in the making is finally receiving its first residents and is nearly filled, with would-be future tenants waiting in line. One Roof Community Housing showed off its completed Brewery Creek apartment building Monday afternoon. The development brings 52 affordable housing units to the 600 block of East Fourth Street.
It’s located where Last Chance Liquor and an auto lube shop once stood. Jeff Corey, One Roof’s executive director, described the project as “transformative” for the neighborhood. In addition to the apartment building, work is also underway on a formerly condemned brownstone next door — a project dubbed Brewery Creek Terrace that could bring yet another 22 affordable housing units to the block as soon as next summer.
ADVERTISEMENT One Roof stuck its neck out by buying the property before it had secured funding for a project atop a site that was known to be contaminated. “We take on projects that others, for good reason, don’t want to take on,” Corey said. “There’s just a bit too much risk.
” Yet without site control, he noted One Roof likely could not have successfully secured funding for Brewery Creek. That leading role is nothing new for One Roof. “It causes some stomach acid.
But it’s the right thing to do for the community,” Corey said. The swift-to-fill building, with most units already spoken for, speaks to the unmet need for additional affordable housing in D.