A church partnered with a housing nonprofit to create dozens of affordable rental units in Arlington, Virginia.
Built in the 1920s, Central United Methodist became a landmark, standing just across the street from the Ballston Metro station. Now the location is an example of faith-based development to create more affordable housing.
The church partnered with Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing on the development.
“It’s key opportunity because there are houses of worship all over this country that — similar to our partner here, Central United Methodist — that have incredible prime real estate holdings in areas where we desperately are trying to find land to build affordable housing,” CEO Carmen Romero said.
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The new development offers 144 affordable housing apartments, an expanded preschool for more than 100 children and a new sanctuary for Central
United Methodist. The original stained-glass windows were repurposed, and some of the cemetery markers were preserved outside.
There’s also a new commercial kitchen for the Provision Church catering program.
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Arlington County helped with zoning and financing issues, Romero said.
“They have all the tools in the toolbox,” Romero said. “Both the land use and financial tools in Arlington and the vision and the elective leadership all working in concert, and that’s what you need.”
Tenants start moving in next week, and Romero has witnessed what it means to many of them.
“They walk through the door and … one gentleman told me he just cried,” she said. “He just cried when he closed the door, because it’s beautiful.”
“When they get here, they really feel like this could be a forever home, and that’s really exciting and why we do the work,” Romero said.
Central United Methodist first began talking about creating affordable housing in 2007. Romero hopes elected leaders will continue to look for ways to make such conversions easier.
Virginia has a shortage of at least 200,000 affordable rental units.
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