Housing Headlines

FALL RIVER --- Utiilizing a federal program, the city's housing authority will borrow $6.2 million to make its 2,500-unit public housing portfolio more energy efficient. The funds will be used to better insulate building exteriors, install energy efficient lighting, new boilers and a co-generation unit at Cardinal Medeiros Towers.

DORCHESTER --- The O'Hearn Storage Building in Fields Corner is home to a post office and a handful of small businesses, but local historians and developers believe a renovation project that includes apartments could bring back an historic property and continue the neighborhood's recent revitalization.

LOWELL --- Two weeks after touring three Trinity Financial housing developments in Boston, Ayer selectman Jim Fay visted the company's revitalization of Lowell's Appleton Mills into 130 apartments. Fay was impressed by the project and said he felt Trinity would do a good job with its proposal to build 246 apartments at the former Fort Devens military site. Trinity is in the process of convincing three abutting towns - Ayer, Shirley and Harvard - to OK the project.

HARVARD --- After a meeting with the state, the town has agreed to use its local housing trust to make mortgage payments on its two small affordable housing properties through March, thus delaying until April foreclosure proceedings on the loan supporting The Inn and Great Elms.

ROXBURY/JAMAICA PLAIN --- Urban Edge developers recently began green renovations on the Urban Edge Apartments (UE Apartments) in Boston's Roxbury and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods. The complex consists of 82 units of occupied, affordable rental housing in 10 buildings on seven sites across the two neighborhoods.

EASTON --- Local officials are hoping that the redevelopment of the historic Ames shovel factory into 113 apartments will trigger downtown growth. The project, expected to begin construction on Feb. 1, includes a wastewater treatment plant and a sewer district that will cover the village business district.