ATLANTA-The Prestwick Development Co. will launch an affordable-housing development for the elderly, now that it has purchased the property for the project, a 2.13-acre site in the East Point Corridors Tax Allocation District in the city of East Point in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

The property was purchased for $1.7 million from the Citizens Trust Bank, which had foreclosed on the property. Richard Bowers & Co., a commercial real estate company, represented the seller.

Prestwick was awarded $8.5 million in federal affordable housing tax credits last fall by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. Gateway East Point, as the project is known, will cost about $13 million, a sum which includes the tax credits. The developer will pay just under $300,000 to demolish the existing 47-year-old, seven-story empty medical office building at the site.

The 100-unit senior living facility is scheduled for completion in early fall 2011. Although East Point is a separate metropolitan area, it is surrounded on four sides by the city of Atlanta.

Prestwick is planning to break ground this summer, probably in July, says Ward Wight, a partner.

The tax credits are made available to affordable housing developers, says Wight, thanks to Section 42 of the IRS code, created during the Reagan administration. “We are allocated tax credits purchased by investors, which gives us equity to do the deal,” he says, adding that he expects to close on the tax credits shortly.

“We found the site first and then applied for tax credits,” says Wight. We were awarded the tax credits at the end of September or the first of October. “Once we received notification of the award, we moved toward final architectural plans and civil engineering,” he says.

“The King building has been vacant for years with Prestwick the first developer to come up with a solid development plan and to obtain adequate financing,” says Genesa Elisa, director of planning and zoning for the city of East Point. “This development is a catalyst for future developments along Cleveland Avenue,” she says.

“I don’t view East Point as a depressed area,” says Wight. “There was a lot of heavy lifting done before we arrived,” he says, noting that the city put together the East Point Corridor Tax Allocation District and Redevelopment Plan for improving the area in order to attract developers and investors. There have already been some new homes and commercial development built there, he says.

Gateway East Point will be an apartment building for low-income elderly, 62-years-old and up. In addition to the 100 apartments for seniors, there will be one for the manager, says Wight. There is a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority rail station within a mile and a bus stop at the front door.