The Gateway Lofts project is still going to move forward without the additional $640,000 in city funding – but the project will take a longer to get started.

The Gateway Lofts project totals $77 million overall and includes 110 supportive housing units, set to help multiple ongoing problems in the city including homelessness, substance abuse and mental health crises. Even without the funds from the city, the project is fully funded and going ahead, but Steve Ald, STEL real estate development director, said with the money from the city, work on the Gateway Lofts project could have started sooner.

“We had planned to use the funds to start work early because it would’ve been available quicker,” Ald said. “With the entire project being funded all at once then everything needs to start at the same time, where if we had been given these funds we could’ve gotten ahead of the game.”

Ald said the funds from the city would have saved them some interest in the future as well. He added that he did not know if there would be a chance to revisit the conversation in the future, but that he knew the city needed to use the funds somehow.

“Several City Council members asked to see the funds used for something else,” Ald said. “Only, a lot of what they asked for the funds cannot be used for. I hope they understand that if they do not use it they could lose it because it goes back to the federal government. It’s better to use it than lose it.”

The city’s Department of Development does have a new plan for the $640,000 as was discussed during last week’s Housing Committee meeting. Crystal Surdyk, city development director, and Kasie Foulk, deputy development director who focuses on housing, presented a new plan for the money during that meeting – $500,000 into the already existing HOME program focused on infill housing that the city has discussed over the past couple of months, and leaving the remaining $140,000 where it is. It was also noted during that meeting that there is no risk of losing the funds because of a deadline, but rather because of uncertainty at the federal level as to whether or not these funds could get pulled, which could happen at any time.

“I think if times were different at the federal level we would just keep on keeping on the way that we’ve been doing,” Foulk said during the meeting. “We have enough to do, it’s not that we’re trying to find more work, we’re just trying to get the money out into the community just in case our funding is pulled.”