Community Frameworks, a nonprofit low-income housing advocacy group, is ramping up its development activity, despite growing competition for fewer available dollars.

Community Frameworks was founded here in 1974 under its original name Northwest Regional Foundation. The organization also has an office in Bremerton, Wash., where its CEO Linda Hugo is based.

It originally focused on community improvements funded through community development block grants, says Brian Jennings, its vice president of production.

“Subsidies have changed over the years,” Jennings says. “We’re trying to respond with various lines of business. For the last 12 years or so, we’ve focused on affordable housing.”

Community Frameworks’ programs include developing and supporting affordable single-family and multifamily housing, development services consulting, homebuyer education, and down-payment assistance.

On the West Side, Community Frameworks has a manufactured-home program that makes site-built quality homes available to nonprofit affordable-housing agencies.

Jennings asserts the manufactured-home program reduces construction time and costs, making sustainable homeownership within the reach of more lower-income families.

The organization recently moved its headquarters and eight-person staff downtown to the main floor of the Empire State Building, at 905 W. Riverside, from its longtime base at 315 W. Mission.

Commercial real estate broker Marc Mowrer, of Spokane-based Kiemle & Hagood Co., represented Community Frameworks in the Empire State lease, which includes 2,750 square feet of office space.

With the relocation, Community Frameworks also is moving ahead with the West 315 low-income apartment project the organization plans at its former home.

The city of Spokane has approved building permits for the project, which will include a three-story, 30,000-square-foot building with 33 apartment units.

To maximize the project’s eligibility for tax credits, Jennings says Community Frameworks decided against developing West 315 as a mixed-use project with commercial and office space, as it originally had envisioned.

The Washington State Housing Finance Commission has approved $5.3 million in tax credit equity for the single-use, multifamily project. Jennings says the total development cost for West 315 will be $7 million.

The project also has received some funding through city of Spokane and Spokane County affordable housing grants, he says.

The building will have a combination of one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Jennings says Community Frameworks hopes to begin construction this month, and the project will take about a year to complete.

Kop Construction Co., of Spokane, is the contractor on the project, and ZBA Architecture PS, also of Spokane, designed it.

Jennings says Kop Construction and ZBA Architecture worked as a strong team in other projects for which Community Frameworks has consulted, including a $10 million Lilac Plaza renovation on the North Side and a $9.4 million, two-phase Appleway Court construction project in Spokane Valley.

The Appleway Court projects, at 221 and 225 S. Farr Road, include a total of 62 senior-housing units, and the Lilac Plaza project includes 174 units.

Spokane United Methodist Homes owns the Appleway Court complexes, and also operates Rockwood Retire-ment Communities campuses on the South Hill and on the North Side.

Spokane Baptist Association Homes owns Lilac Plaza, where renovations included remodeling all of the units and common areas and updating mechanical systems to extend the life of the facility.

As the development consultant, Community Frameworks helped put together financing packages and represented the project owners throughout construction.

“We do development-services consulting for third parties,” Jennings says. “We help them develop projects and make sure they’re feasible.”

Tim Williams, Community Frameworks’ senior housing developer, says it often takes a combination of grants, tax credits, and other subsidies to make a project pencil out.

“Projects cost market rate to build. When you’re not getting market rate for leases, you have to close that gap,” Williams says.

The West 315 project, for instance, will serve residents earning 30 percent to 60 percent of the area’s median income. Some units will be set aside for disabled residents and some for chronically homeless people.

Tax credits, which must be approved by the Washington state Housing Finance Commission, currently are the largest source of project revenue, although they come with strings attached.

“It takes a long-haul commitment of 15 to 30 years for low-income housing,” Williams says.

More than ever, applications for funding exceed the funds available.

“It’s a competitive process that usually requires some local money from the city or county,” Williams says. “The Housing Finance Commission wants to see community support.”

Purchasers of the tax credits hope to realize savings on their income tax bills.

“They get credits and depreciation, and we get to use their money,” Williams says.

One goal for such subsidies is that the projects they benefit will enhance the community, he says.

“I hope we will be a catalyst for neighborhood redevelopment,” Williams says, referring to the West 315 project.

Jennings adds, “This is an employment center near downtown. There are good services in and around it. People are starting to see the conveniences of services and transit.”

Community Frameworks sometimes finds that its own projects compete for funds with projects proposed by potential clients.

“We try to avoid competition, and we explain to clients if we have something going that might compete with their project,” Jennings says.

Community Frameworks’ single-family home developments here include a 36-lot phase of Greenfield Estates, near Francis Avenue and Havana Street, and 24 ranch-style homes at Takoda Park, on the West Plains.

Community Frameworks also is dusting off plans for its recession-shelved Valley Pointe project.

Valley Pointe would include 30 two-bedroom townhomes, which typically will have 1,200 square feet of living space, a carport, and no-maintenance landscaping.

The project site is at 10309 E. Fourth, between Fourth Avenue and Appleway Boulevard across Appleway from the former University City Mall.

Jennings says Community Frameworks anticipates construction there will start yet this fall.

“We’re hoping to get something on the market in the spring,” he says.

In its homeownership projects, Community Frameworks provides down-payment assistance, and also provides financing assistance, to help ensure buyers have affordable monthly payments.

The organization defines affordable payments as less than 30 percent of the household income.

Community Frameworks’ Spokane-area rental holdings include the 29-unit Pioneer Park Place Apartments, at 424 W. Seventh; the 28-unit Rockwell Apartments, at 14521 E. Rockwell, in Spokane Valley; the 16-unit Hoffman Apartments, at 3024 E. Hoffman, in Hillyard; and the 40-unit Aspen Grove Apartments, at 12204 E. Fourth, in Spokane Valley.

The apartments rent for $300 to $700 per month, depending on the location, the size of the units, and a resident’s income. The rental units are managed by Spokane Housing Ventures, another Spokane-based affordable housing nonprofit.