BY JOHN BRICE
FOR THE LAFAYETTE SUN
VALLEY — Community leaders and local officials gathered at the newly constructed King’s Way apartments for senior citizens in Valley for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 6.
Residents aged 55 and older are eligible to occupy the 56 affordable apartment units in this new community that were developed through a partnership between the city of Valley, affordable housing consultant The Bennett Group LLC and housing developer Community Action Partnership of North Alabama. CAPNA CEO Tim Thrasher was the first to address the attendees as they sat under a large tent in the parking lot of the housing development.
“We have invested $19.1 million in this city’s economy. That is a lot of money here in Valley, Alabama, right off of I-85,” Thrasher said. “We have an annual operating budget of $274,000 here in this community and we produce about $410,000 of revenue into this community. We love what we do.”
Founding partner of The Bennett Group, Fred Bennett, highlighted the outstanding teamwork that made this project such a success in his remarks.
“I wanted to thank the Chamber of Commerce here for supporting this project from day one,” he said. “You hosted one of the most beautiful groundbreakings we have ever done. I want to thank the mayor and everybody who was involved with that. When Tim says it takes a village, one of the things I really want to highlight today is those people who are normally kind of behind the scenes. We want to recognize those who did the behind the scenes things and worked together so well. I have been out here talking to people all morning, and everybody talks about how well things worked here, how everybody worked together, how it went so well, how there weren’t so many problems.”
Valley Mayor Leonard Riley praised the people and organizations who turned this vision into a reality.
“Fred’s group is really a good group,” Riley said. “I come by here every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. I came by this parking lot with managers, superintendents, the construction company itself, and they were good. They didn’t leave a mess in the road, they took care of everything. I have come through here, I have watched everybody work and they all worked good. That is the reason the project came together as fast as it did.”
District 38 State Rep. Kristin Nelson (R-Lanett) pledged her ongoing support for affordable senior housing.
“What a wonderful day for the city of Valley and for our community,” Nelson said. “Just like Mr. Bennett said, we have done some really hard work in the legislature to make things like this possible and that work is not finished. I think you are going to see more of that in the next quadrennium going into the next four years.”
Bennett Group partner Aron Boldog shared financial details of how the project was made possible in his presentation.
“It takes all of us working together to really make this vision a reality,” Boldog said. “Today that is what we get to celebrate, and I am so thankful and grateful to be here with you today. First, I want to dive a little bit deeper into our financial partners, what they mean to the project and what they bring as investments into this project. We don’t have anybody here from the Alabama Housing Finance Authority. They are a state body that runs the low-income housing tax credit program.”
