Anderson Apartment Project Advances
 
Record Searchlight, January 13, 2004
By Kimberly Bolander

 
Developers rehabilitating the Anderson Oaks apartments into affordable senior housing hope to soon start demolishing three of the buildings at the notorious complex.

Long Beach-based LINC Housing Corp., the developer and owner for the renewed apartments, will invest $6.1 million, and plans to complete the project in early 2005, President Hunter Johnson said.

The completed senior apartments will be called Seasons at Los Robles, with rents ranging from $367 to $536 for its 14 one-bedroom and 45 two-bedroom units.

“With renovated structures, new landscaping and a total exterior facelift, Seasons at Los Robles will have a brand new look that will erase all negative associations with the old, crime-ridden property that it was before this transformation,” Johnson said.

 
Anderson Oaks was the site of a drug raid in February 2000 that led to the arrests of 21 suspects, many of whom were residents. Shasta County’s Children’s Protective Services also took 10 children into custody. The property was later abandoned and has been vacant for more than two years.

So far, interiors have been gutted and walls and windows removed. Three of the complex’s 10 buildings were demolished in September 2002.

By March, developers hope to demolish three more buildings and replace them with a larger building, LINC Vice President Grace Quach said.

Plumbing, electrical and roofing systems will be replaced, and the remaining original four buildings will also be rehabilitated. The entire job is expected to be finished in a year or less.  

“Everything except the exterior walls will be new,” Quach said. “The exterior will be refurbished and painted. This apartment complex will look almost brand new.”

The apartments are for seniors age 55 and older earning between 50 percent and 60 percent of area median income. The median household income in Shasta County is just over $34,000 a year, according to the 2000 Census.

Three of the units will be fully handicap accessible. The remaining units will be handicap adaptable with wheelchair-friendly showers, low kitchen counters and door levers instead of knobs. Laundry appliances will be front-loading to accommodate wheelchairs.

Copyright 2004 Redding Record Searchlight CA

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