After four years of planning, talking, dreaming, and hoping, the future residents of Newberry Place, the city’s first cohousing project, are set to break ground. A ceremony is planned for 4 PM on November 13.
“We’re hoping to have the kids of the cohousing project do the groundbreaking,” said Steve Faber, one of the project’s founders. “We have a lot of youth and we thought it would be fun to have them involved. [The ceremony] is really just to celebrate making it to this major milestone, and to dedicate ourselves to the next stage which is construction.”
Several people involved in the project are expected to speak, including Faber, David DeVelder from Inner City Christian Federation, as well as representatives from DeStigter/Smith Architects, VanderKode Construction, and Bank of Holland.
The $4.5 million project will bring 20 townhomes to a vacant corner lot at Newberry and Livingston Streets NE. The purpose of the cohousing venture is to create an intentional community of families, married, and single people who live in their own homes, but share common spaces, such as the “common house” where residents will regularly prepare and eat meals together.
The city designated the area a Neighborhood Enterprise Zone, which means a 50 percent reduction in property taxes for residents for the next 12 years.
Faber said five of the townhomes are still available, ranging in price from $125,000 for a 900-square-foot, 2-bedroom unit to about $220,000 for a 3-to-5-bedroom unit.
Source: Steve Faber, Newberry Place
www.newberryplace.org