Council to consider application for housing grant

The Worthington City Council will consider a Workforce Development Program grant application from C.R. Lloyd Associates during its Monday meeting.

The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency established the Workforce Housing Development Program to assist in developing market rate residential rental properties to address the lack of workforce housing in Greater Minnesota. The purpose of this program is to create new market rate residential rental properties. The deadline for the city to submit a grant request is April 30, and it’s anticipated that grant awards will be announced in August.

C.R. Lloyd Associates, of Sioux Falls, has requested that the City of Worthington submit a Request for Proposal to Minnesota Housing on behalf of its proposed market rate residential rental project that would be developed within the grounds of the GreatLIFE golf course. Lloyd's project consists of a 47-unit apartment building with one, two and three-bedroom apartments.

The Workforce Housing Development Program funds shall not exceed 50 percent of the total development costs and requires at least $1 of local matching funds for every $2 of program funding. The request for matching funds from Lloyd for this project includes: $1,000,000 from the city’s Economic Development Authority's Spending Plan created in December 2022 with unobligated Tax Increment District No. 7 funds; and a five-year property tax abatement from the city, Nobles County and Worthington Independent School District 518. The total five-year tax abatement is estimated to be approximately $560,000 based on an estimated taxable market value of $8,000,000.