The College Park City Council authorized the city manager to execute a more than $147,000 contract with a construction company for exterior repairs on a historic city-owned property on Calvert Road.
The property, which was built in 1898 and bought by the city in 2022, will become another affordable housing option for students or seniors in the city, according to city documents.
The contract with Modern Construction Services, a company that pursues renovations on historic properties, will go toward repainting, installing air conditioning units, replacing wood, window and roof shingles and more, Miriam Bader, the city’s director of planning, said during Tuesday’s meeting.
City documents state that the house contains four apartments: a two-bedroom unit on the first floor, two, single-bedroom small efficiency units on the second floor and a single-bedroom unit on the third floor.
Architect Thomas Taltavull, who specializes in historic buildings, was hired by city staff for this project. He said the house is in “decent shape” compared to other houses its age, most likely because it’s been lived in and maintained since its construction.
[College Park receives more than 350 applications for student rent subsidy pilot program]
The house’s positive condition means it can be renovated instead of going through the process of demolition and rebuilding, Taltavull said.
Obtaining the money, finding people for the job and finishing the renovations in time, Taltavull said, will be the hardest parts of the process.
“[Historic buildings] need a special craftsmanship, which is hard to find nowadays,” he said.
District 3 council member Stuart Adams expressed his hesitation with voting on the grant at Tuesday’s meeting because there hasn’t been community feedback yet.
“Before we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, we really need to understand what the true short term plan is,” Adams said.
According to city documents, the money will be sourced from the 2025 fiscal year budget.
Adams also noted that there have been other renovations recommended by the architect that are going to cost the city additional money. Additional projects in the city, Adams said, need to be prioritized, especially due to the small staff working on each of them.
[College Park City Council amends budget to cut funding for Meals on Wheels program]
“We purchased this property two and a half years ago,” Adams said. “This is the first time I think it’s been on council as an action item related to this property.”
Though he felt comfortable voting with the other council members if they were in favor of it, he said the amount of questions they have about the topic should be considered.
Before the city can begin the authorized renovations, the building’s current tenants must be relocated.
City Manager Kenny Young said at the meeting that his original plan was to have the tenants vacate by December, but Bader convinced him to stretch the time frame to June. This gives the tenants enough time to leave the property and consider the housing options that may be available during the start of the spring semester, Young said.
“Ms. Bader convinced me to have more of a human heart than a city manager’s heart,” he said.
Only exterior renovations were authorized at Tuesday’s meeting. The council will discuss how to move forward with funding interior renovations at a future meeting.
