District of Columbia
by Josh Drobnyk
Staff Reporter
Washington Wizards and Verizon Center owner Abe Pollin is planning to build a 120-home affordable housing community to serve the city's teachers, firefighters and police officers.
The plan, reports Washington Business Journal columnist Mark Bisnow in his Washington Real Estate Weekly online newsletter, is still in its early stages and Pollin would not disclose the proposed location for the community other than to say that it is in the District. A deal for the land has not been finalized.
Still, Pollin says he hopes to break ground this summer and have construction completed by mid-2007.
Pollin says he would operate the community on a nonprofit basis and would sell and rent houses to city employees. The selection process for eligible residents has not been developed.
"The bottom line will be to make rates as low as we can make them so these valued employees can afford to live in the city that they serve so well," Pollin told Bisnow.
The proposed project is representative of the region's push for more affordable housing. A $7 million mixed-use community is being developed in Falls Church with some housing priority given to area teachers. Another development of 1,000 houses and apartments targeted to teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses and low-income residents has been pitched for Prince William County.
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