The Waco Housing Authority has scraped together funding to begin work as early as summer on the first phase of redeveloping its largest public housing complex.
The work on Estella Maxey Place will begin with a phase to create 79 units of seniors-only housing at the site, 1809 J.J. Flewellen Road.
The first phase will establish a gated seniors-only section along Adams Street, complete with its own community center. Existing units will be reconfigured and renovated to give seniors more space and amenities, including wider hallways, more accessible restrooms, dishwashers, larger closets, individual driveways, front porches and small backyard patios.
The senior section is part of a $25 million plan to reinvent the 364-unit complex that has been a fixture of East Waco nearly 70 years. The complex also will be renamed Melody Grove in honor of original namesake Estella Maxey’s career as a musician.
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The Waco Housing Authority has lined up financing to move forward with the first phase of the Estella Maxey housing redevelopment, known as Melody Grove.
Under the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program, it will be converted from traditional public housing to site-based Section 8 housing, giving existing low-income residents vouchers that will allow them to remain without rent increases. Rent is set at a rate of 30% of tenants’ income, and the average Estella Maxey resident makes less than $11,000, according to the housing authority budget.
Coming phases will raze and replace units with more modern homes intended to look more like conventional homes, with some available for market-rate rental. The number of units will be reduced from 364 to fewer than 275, and residents will get a new community center with an outdoor recreation space featuring a stage for performances.
The authority has already converted the South Terrace Apartments complex through the program and will eventually redevelop Kate Ross Homes on South 11th Street.
“I’m hoping that not only residents feel a real positivity about the changes coming but also the community sees it as a real plus,” Waco Housing Authority President and CEO Milet Hopping said. “It’s hard to keep doing Band-Aid improvements to a property after 60 or 70 years.”
Hopping said the complex could become a catalyst for more development in its East Waco neighborhood, which also includes the new $74 million G.W. Carver Middle School a block away.
“I think the ability to create something that can stay modern and fresh will be appealing to people who never thought of coming back to Waco,” she said.
The Melody Grove project received approval this summer for $1.83 million in tax credits through the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program. The tax credits will be sold to private companies to reduce their taxes, generating several times the face value of the credit.
In December, the Melody Grove effort received the final piece of financing it needed to move forward: an $850,000 subsidy from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas.
The bank, which provides wholesale lending to its members, sets aside 10% of its profits for community housing efforts. With that financing in hand, the Waco Housing Authority will move forward on getting federal approvals needed to start on the Phase 1 renovations, which will cost about $5 million.
Tenants have been involved in several input meetings since the RAD conversion plan was announced for Estella Maxey in 2018, and another meeting is planned Jan. 18.
Connie and O.C. Mack, members of the Estella Maxey resident board, both welcome the changes and look forward to moving into the new senior section.
“It’s going to be a lot different,” Connie Mack said. “Some walls are going to be knocked out to make them a little larger. We like that. Each one will have their own driveway. I love that. They’re supposed to add a front porch. Right now there’s quite a few people who live to sit out. I think it’s going to be a lot better.”
She said the card-entry gate and other traffic controls will protect older residents from traffic speeding through the complex.
The Macks are Waco natives who have lived at Estella Maxey since 2010. Both say it is safer than it was a decade ago, and criminal incidents are usually the result of people coming in from elsewhere.
“It’s not that bad to me,” she said. “I had a little girl ask me, what do you think about living here in the hood? I said, I don’t consider this the hood. Home is what you make of it. You make it bad or make it good.”
O.C. Mack is a retired pastor, truancy officer and substitute teacher, while Connie is retired from the Doris Miller YMCA. They both have struggled with health issues, including a kidney transplant Connie had some years ago, and more recent bouts with COVID-19.
Connie Mack has a flowerbed of cannas and daylilies in front of her house and grows pots of pothos on the small covered entry at her door. She is looking forward to transplanting them to a new yard in front of her new porch.
When her health allows, she enjoys interacting with neighbors, getting up early in the morning to walk around the complex.
“I know them pretty well,” she said. “I don’t like to live next to people when I don’t know who they are. I make it my business to know people and the children. I even watch them get on the bus.”
During an interview in her front yard Friday, neighbors passing on foot or in cars stopped to exchange greetings. One man updated her about his kidney and his recovery from a car wreck. She playfully scolded another man who dropped a plastic bottle on the grass, prompting him to assure her that he was just picking up litter and would be back with gloves on.
Connie Mack acknowledged that moving to a seniors-only section will make it more of a challenge to keep up with her younger neighbors, but she hopes those relationships will continue.
Hopping, the Waco Housing Authority leader, said she recognizes separating seniors from the rest of the community has its downsides. But in meetings with senior residents, the overriding concern was safety, especially protection from traffic.
“The only way we could look at doing that was to cut off access to the other roads,” Hopping said.
She said the senior section will still be accessible through walkways, so it will not be completely isolated.
Hopping said she hopes the redevelopment will foster a sense of community and enrichment. Estella Maxey already offers enrichment programs through nonprofit groups such as Mentor Waco and Transformation Waco.
She said the new community building will allow programming for children and youth to expand.
“We had a donation of pianos from Baylor,” she said. “We’re hoping to encourage kids in the arts there with music, piano lessons, singing groups. We want to have performances open to the public. That’s why we wanted to have an outdoor stage.”
