Group hopes to change image after renovation of Fourth Street Towers

The boards on the windows are gone.

So are the vagrants, drug dealers and others who occupied the apartment complex at the corner of Sixth Street and Third Avenue in the Columbus Historic District.

It has taken Fourth Street Towers, a nonprofit Community Housing Development Organization affiliated with Fourth Street Missionary Baptist Church, two years and nearly $800,000 to clear out then renovate the 20-units one block off Veterans Parkway.

Fourth Street Towers has joined forces with Elite Ventures Leasing and Management, which will be the property managers. Two years ago, the property was in a state of repair and needed to be addressed, said the Rev. Johnny Flakes III, pastor of Fourth Street Missionary Baptist.

"What you see today is one of the things we have been praying for," he said.

Flakes said the project was about transforming the property and the area.

" It was about making sure we were good stewards of what we have, not being seen as landlords that would perpetuate the kind of illicit activities that were actually associated with this property," he said. "We are feeling very good about what has taken place. We are transforming this particular corner. This has been boarded up -- the bottom was boarded up for years. So, it made a haven for squatters and a haven for drug activity."

But not any more, Flakes said, calling it a "respectable" place.

The funding for the project came from a combination of federal community block grants administered by the city of Columbus and a bank loan, Flakes said. The federal contribution was $530,000 and the loan was $265,000. That will allow Fourth Street Towers to offer a combination of market-rate and subsidized rents.

The units on the bottom floor will rent for $525 per month for two bedrooms and one bath and $625 for three bedrooms and one bath. The upstairs units, renovated with the federal funds, will be available to low-income families and rent for $425 for a two-bedroom unit and $475 for three bedrooms.

Those going into the market-rate housing will be subject to a background and credit check, said Elite Ventures partners Travis Chambers and Karl Douglass.

"We are headed in the right direction," Chambers said.

Elite Ventures has been renting the apartments for about two months and have filled seven of the 20 units.

When the 20 units are rented, Fourth Street Missionary Baptist will turn its attention to another apartment complex it owns in the southern end of the Historic District, Flakes said. The nonprofit owns 14 units at the corner of Fourth Street and Second Avenue.

"Some of them are currently rented and some are vacant," Douglass said. "We hope to do a project there similar to what we have done here."

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Group hopes to change image after renovation of Fourth Street Towers ."