LOWELL, Mass. – The ribbon has been cut here on Acre Crossing where a parcel in the city’s Acre neighborhood was redeveloped into 32 new homes for sale to first-time, moderate-income homebuyers, and a new five-story office building for Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union (JDCU).
The five-story brick Acre Crossing ResideN.C.es at 650 Merrimack St. has 24 two-bedroom homes and eight three-bedroom homes with first-floor commercial space. According to the credit union, the new homes were developed through MassHousing’s CommonWealth Builder Program, which provided $8 million in funding. Other funding sources included $14 million in construction loan financing from Enterprise Bank and $763,000 in Community Preservation Act funding from the City of Lowell.
Third Building in the Neighborhood
The new Jeanne D’Arc office building at 626 Merrimack St. also has 160 parking spaces in a two-level structure, with the lower-level underground. The 112-year-old JDCU formed in the Acre neighborhood and the new building is the credit union’s third in the neighborhood.
"This partnership has allowed Jeanne D'Arc to expand our presence in The Acre Neighborhood, showing our continued commitment to our community," the credit union’s president and CEO, Mark S. Cochran, said in a statement. "It's even more meaningful that our newest building takes us back to the location of our first branch in Lowell where we started more than 100 years ago."
Partnership Plays Role
According to the organizations involved in the project, Acre Crossing, LLC partnered with the Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership (MVHP) to bring the new affordable homes to the neighborhood and market them to first-time homebuyers with household incomes up to 100% of the Area Median Income (AMI). The AMI for Lowell is $132,900 for a household of four.
MassHousing’s CommonWealth Builder Program is a landmark initiative to address the racial homeownership gap in Massachusetts by creating new homeownership and wealth-building opportunities in underserved communities. It is the largest state-level program of its kind in the nation and provides market-based subsidies to support the construction of new, moderately priced, single-family homes and condominiums in the City of Boston, the state’s 26 Gateway Cities, and Framingham and Randolph.
How Program Works
The program subsidizes the production of homes restricted to homebuyers with incomes set anywhere between 70% to 120% of their Area Median Income. Since the program launched in 2019, MassHousing has committed a total of $106.2 million to 22 CommonWealth Builder projects across Massachusetts.
These projects will create a total of 564 new homeownership opportunities. The program is funded by state capital funds and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding allocated by the Massachusetts Legislature.