Spokane County’s affordable-housing program has recommended allocating $3.3 million to be divided among four low-income housing projects using funds available through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

All of the projects named in the recommendations are in their respective fundraising stages. If they come to fruition, their combined total value likely would exceed $33 million, according to preliminary estimates provided by project representatives.

The Spokane County Community Services, Housing, and Community Development Department, which oversees the county’s affordable-housing program, is collecting public comment on the recommendations through June 18, when they are expected to be forwarded to the county commissioners for approval.

In one project, the program recommends allocating $1.2 million to Spokane-based nonprofit Community Frameworks, which is looking to redevelop its office complex north of downtown into a mixed-use project.

The project would include constructing a new four-story building with 29 apartment units and ground floor office space at 315 W. Mission, says Chris Venne, finance director for Community Frameworks.

Community Frameworks develops and manages low-income housing throughout the Pacific Northwest. The organization currently occupies about 3,000 square feet of office space in the complex on Mission Avenue, which consists of two attached, single-story structures with a total of 13,300 square feet of space.

Venne says the 1950s-era complex would be razed to make room for the mixed-use project.

The initial cost estimate for the Community Frameworks project is $7.6 million, he says.

“The major funding application is still ahead of us,” Venne says. “We’re hoping to apply for tax credits at the end of this year.”

He says construction would start in the fall of 2015 at the earliest.

ZBA Architecture PS, of Spokane, is designing the project, which would include 6,000 square feet of office space and 24,000 square feet of residential space, Venne says.

As currently envisioned, one- and two-bedroom apartments there would range in size from 500 to 900 square feet of living space, he says.

Community Frameworks’ current complex also is occupied by other nonprofits, including Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium and Spokane Community Land Trust. Venne says Community Frameworks plans to provide offices for nonprofits when the project is completed, but the current tenants will need to find new homes while the project is under construction.

Venne says the funding recommendation from the county “absolutely helps” the project move forward in the fundraising process.

“Tax credits are awarded competitively at the state level,” he says, “If we didn’t have the funding recommendation, we would be dead in the water.”

Spokane County also has recommended allocating $1.2 million to Catholic Housing Services of Eastern Washington, an affiliate of nonprofit social services provider Catholic Charities of Spokane.

Rob McCann, executive director of Catholic Charities, says the funding would go toward a 50-unit housing project that would be constructed in or near the downtown area.

He says the project is in the exploratory funding stages, but it likely would be similar to the $8 million, 51-unit Father Bach Haven Apartments that Catholic Charities opened last year at 108 S. State downtown. That complex provides housing for chronically homeless residents.

McCann says a site for the project will be proposed in coming weeks.

For another project, the county program recommends allocating $600,000 toward the funding of Pine Rock Apartments, a 120-unit complex planned in the east 3200 block of 55th Avenue, on Spokane’s South Hill.

As reported in the Journal earlier this year, the Pine Rock project is one of two adjacent $16 million apartment complexes that would be developed by Commonwealth Agency Inc., a Hayden, Idaho-based nonprofit organization.

The Pine Rock project, which has been awarded $10.8 million in low-income housing tax credits through the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, ten-tatively is scheduled to be completed in early 2015, depending on funding and permitting.

Whitewater Creek Inc., of Hayden, is the contractor on the project, and Spokane-based ZBA Architecture is designing it.

In its fourth recommendation, the county program seeks to award $254,000 to Proclaim Liberty Inc., which proposes to renovate the 48-unit Liberty Park Terrace Apartments, at 1405 E. Hartson, on the lower South Hill.

Shannon Meagher, of the Spokane-based Kiemle & Hagood Co. commercial real estate brokerage, which manages the complex, says Proclaim Liberty is seeking funds to update the 40-some-year-old complex so it can remain in service another 40 years.

The project owner also is seeking funds from other sources for the Liberty Terrace project, which is expected to cost well over $1 million, Meagher says.