By Gary Nelson
The Arizona Republic
Mesa is forgiving nearly half a million dollars worth of interest on an old loan that helped establish one of Arizona’s premier senior apartment complexes.
The City Council made that unanimous decision last week, with Mayor Scott Smith absent, after Neighborhood Services director Tammy Albright outlined the case for doing so.
Discovery Point Retirement Apartments, 6210 E. Arbor Ave., were built in 1996 using a variety of government funding sources.
One source was low-income housing tax credits, which are awarded by the state as a way of encouraging investors to finance affordable housing projects. Another was a federal program called HOME, which awards grants that local governments, can use for low-income housing.
Mesa loaned about $419,000 of federal HOME funds to the limited partnership that owns the apartments. The interest rate was 7.52 percent, and annual payments were to have been about $54,000.
