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Ability Housing to break ground on project at Lake Forest site

Jacksonville Business Journal, February 5, 2025, by Emma Behrmann

Nearly four years after proposing affordable units, some of which will be dedicated for school district employees, a local nonprofit can now break ground on a development at the former site of a Duval County school.

Ability Housing received the City of Jacksonville’s approval on a $15 million building permit for Village at Lake Forest, an apartment complex comprised of seven buildings with 120 units, located at 901 Kennard St., the former Lake Forest School of the Visual and Performing Arts. The project required complex financing, which caused delays.

Elkins Construction is listed as the general contractor.

The permit for the project first came under city review in August, following an inducement of bonds from the Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority in March. A sitework permit for demolishing the existing elementary school was issued in January with a job cost of $25.7 million.

Ability Housing has partnered with Duval County Public Schools, which owns the 9.8-acre site. Units will be rented to school district employees.

The Community Foundation, which has helped outline plans for an affordable housing fund for the city, invested $2.5 million toward affordable housing and small businesses in Northeast Florida in September. Of that investment, $500,000 went to Ability Housing as a loan to provide critical gap financing for the Lake Forest project.

Ability Housing also has its own affordable housing fund. It will provide Ability Housing with low- or no-interest predevelopment loans, enabling the organization to maintain a pipeline of projects.

The fund was seeded with an initial investment of $3.75 million from the Capital Magnet Fund, a grant program administered by the Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and leveraged with $950,000 from the state.

Cogent Bank invested $500,000 into the fund in September. Its contribution, structured as a seven-year loan with a below-market interest rate, brought the fund more than halfway to its $10.2 million goal.

In January, Ability Housing CEO Shannon Nazworth told the Business Journal it had deployed all but $180,000 of the $3.75 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury into its affordable housing projects. The $950,000 from the state would be deployed within the next month or so.

Additional investors had recently written checks for the fund as well, and Nazworth said she was hopeful they’d achieve their goal quickly.

With financing secured for Village at Lake Forest, and the permit approved, vertical construction can begin. The development should take about 22 months.