Greccio adds 36 apartments to its affordable housing portfolio

Greccio Housing, a nonprofit organization that serves low-income families and individuals in the Pikes Peak region, has added 36 apartment units to its affordable housing portfolio with the purchase of Uintah Park and Terrace Apartments.

With the purchase of the two-building property at 2525 and 2531 E. Uintah St., Greccio Housing now owns and/or manages 19 properties with 387 apartment units.

The total purchase price was $1,176,415, paid for through private lending and funds from the Colorado Springs Office of Housing Development and the El Paso County Housing Authority; Greccio is also seeking rehab funds from the Colorado Division of Housing. The property fell into foreclosure last year.

The apartments are Greccio’s first property purchase since the October 2009 purchase of Bentley Commons Apartments. Greccio plans to close on another property, with another 36 apartment units, within the next month or so, Greccio Housing Executive Director Lee Patke said.

Greccio, Patke said, has “an aggressive, strategic plan for the next three to five years to add new properties to our portfolio.” That drive for new property comes as an increase in foreclosures, stagnant wages, high unemployment and a lack of new construction of affordable housing have fueled the need, he added.

“We are near 100 percent occupancy and we have been for the last two years, so the need is great,” Patke said.

As for the current residents of Uintah Park and Terrace Apartments, “I would be surprised if not all of them qualified for affordable housing,” Patke said. Greccio will work with any who don’t; Patke said there is “a commitment to nondisplacement of residents.”