The NFC purchased the properties, located across the street from the Tupper Lake Middle High School, from the LaScalas two years ago. The couple said when they pass by these apartments after they are filled with families, they’ll be able to feel proud about giving back to the new generation of workers.

NFC is a nonprofit investment group in the Northeast that has been focusing on housing revitalization. This project is being funded through a blend of state money — including from the village’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative award — and the NFC’s unique investment model.

The project is entering what NFC Adirondack Program Director Leslie Karasin called the “visible stage” after lots of work behind the scenes to get to this point.

Karasin said their main goal is to attract and retain young people in Tupper Lake with the middle-income-priced “Park Street Residences.”

Employees of the Northern Forest Center, local and state government representatives and others break ground on the NFC’s project to turn the former Plaza Hotel on Park Street in Tupper Lake into nine workforce housing units. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

The plan is for the former Plaza Hotel at 179 Park St. to be demolished and a new nine-unit building with a similar footprint to be built. Karasin said it wasn’t an easy decision to demolish the building, but after looking at its condition, they decided it is the right move. She said this building will have “high-quality” studio and two-bedroom apartments.

The LaScala’s former home at 185 Park St. will be renovated and rented as a single-family home.

Karasin called out village Code Enforcement Officer Pete Edwards at the groundbreaking to let him know they’ll be going to him for a demolition permit soon.

She said the demolition should be fast, and they expect to start construction in September or October. Her hope is that at this time next year, they’ll start to rent the workforce housing units.

Workforce housing is for locals working the essential jobs in the community — like traveling nurses, college students working at the Wild Center and Sunmount employees.

Northern Forest Center board member and Tupper Lake resident Ross Whaley speaks at a groundbreaking on Thursday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“All those things that are scrolling through the employment opportunities,” Karasin said, pointing over at an electronic message board in front of the school listing job openings for psychologists, teachers and social workers.

This project checked a lot of boxes for the NFC: It is “high-visibility,” eligible for state dollars through the DRI and in a walkable part of town.

Karasin said the units will be priced to be affordable within 80% to 120% of the area median income range, using research on Tupper Lake-area salaries to determine affordable rates.

Based on the 2020 census data in Tupper Lake, she said the median income was $56,497, which means that 80% AMI would be $45,198 and 120% AMI would be $67,796. These numbers are likely different now, and also likely to change before the rentals open next year.

The home will be rented, as will the nine units in the larger building, for several years. Typically, Karasin said the NFC rents for six to eight years, and sells the properties after that. She said they’ll find a “like-minded group” or potentially turn the nine-unit building into condos.

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For the future

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On top of raising her daughters in the 185 Park St. home, Amanda spent her high school years there, too. She moved into the house with her mom and her sisters when she was 14 and said it was a great place for a teenager.

She could walk to school, downtown stores, the park and the lake.

It was a big decision for them to sell to the NFC.

“I mean, I was really attached to it,” Amanda said of her family home. “I loved living here so much.”

But both she and Ron said they’re excited to see what the NFC is going to do with it.

Ron was initially planning for a sort of “Airbnb village” at the former Plaza Hotel. But then the coronavirus pandemic started and housing became an evident “huge issue” in Tupper Lake. He said they could not do STRs while so many professionals were knocking on their door looking for housing.

“In order to have a strong community and a strong school system, you need workforce housing,” Amanda said.

Other developers were offering them more money than NFC, but Ron said, growing up in subsidized housing, they agreed they wanted to see local kids have nice places to live. This took an approximately $100,000 financial sacrifice on their part.

“We were happy to take a lesser offer for the betterment of everybody,” Ron said. “These are the type of projects we need. … I would much rather see families.”

The Plaza Hotel had a negative reputation for years, Ron said, because it was in rough shape. He and his father-in-law spent hundreds of hours redoing apartments in there and changed the perception of the building, but he said the age of the structure always outran them.

Amanda said there are many places like that in Tupper Lake, which have run out their lifespan and are now old and dangerous.

According to the Tupper Lake history book “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock,” the Plaza Hotel was one of the town’s older hotels. At the time of the book’s 1976 publication, the hotel had been in operation for more than 70 years. The building was largely destroyed by a 1948 Christmas Day fire, and rebuilt afterward.

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Funding

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NFC President Rob Riley said the NFC is basically self-financing the project. It is not going through a bank, where interest rates on loans are very high. Instead, they are using what they call “impact investments.”

The NFC approaches investors — wealthy people, banks, companies, hospitals — to take out long-term unsecured loans with a “modest” interest rate to fund their projects.

“Anybody that has money that they might invest in the stock market … but who wants to see a social return for their money,” Karasin said.

Of the $4 million project, around $1.8 million will come from impact investments.

The rest will come from grants and donations from foundations and individuals.

In 2022, the project got a $725,000 award through the village’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant.

“(Former Mayor) Paul Maroun doesn’t get enough credit for the work that he did to get this DRI grant,” Ron, a former village trustee, said.

This money has not been spent yet, but will soon, when construction starts.

At the time, the project was estimated to cost $2.6 million. Costs have risen significantly since then.

Just last week, the village of Tupper Lake was awarded an $800,000 Restore New York grant for the project.

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Addressing the crisis

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The speakers at Thursday’s groundbreaking had plenty of “thank yous” to go around — for the NFC, the state and the local government. Karasin said dozens of people in the Tupper Lake community supported the project in some way.

“We’re taking a bet on Tupper, but I’ll also say Tupper’s taking a bet on us,” Riley said.

NFC board member and Tupper Lake resident Ross Whaley said the group has seen success with this project model in Millinocket, Maine. He said the NFC’s development there triggered more private investment in the surrounding area, elevating the town.

Steve Hunt, the North Country Regional Director for the state’s Empire State Development, said housing is a crucial part of economic development.

Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, said throughout his district, wherever he goes, people talk about housing. He was encouraged to see a project addressing that in Tupper Lake.

“This fits that niche of having that middle-market workforce housing. It is so needed here in the Adirondacks,” Jones said.

This affordable housing crisis impacts nearly every aspect of life here, from school enrollment to the size of the labor market. It’s impacting some local businesses’ ability to grow and families’ ability to put down roots in the Adirondacks. It’s forcing some residents to commute long distances to work, causing a reduction in volunteer services — including dwindling volunteer fire department membership — and contributes to homelessness.

The Tupper Lake DRI also included $4.45 million for the Oval Wood Dish Factory complex on Demars Boulevard, where developers plan to turn the abandoned factory into a complex for affordable workforce housing.

Recently, the Franklin County Land Bank also acquired an abandoned home on Wawbeek Avenue to renovate into a new home, one of the land bank’s first two land acquisitions after forming last year.