FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Affordable housing is an ongoing issue across Northwest Arkansas.
In April, the Fayetteville City Council declared a housing crisis.
At the last council meeting on June 25, the manager for Countdown Properties LLC Brandon Scallion proposed the plan of converting the Quality Inn motel off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard into affordable housing.
"What we try to do is take an already existing structure and change it around a little bit, make it a little bit more of a permanent type of residency, and try to provide that as cheap as we possibly can so then we can, in turn, provide the cheapest possible rent we can for anybody," said Scallion.
This is the company's third affordable housing project with other successful work in Queen City, Texas, and in Clarksville, Arkansas. Scallion said those are considered smaller markets where rent is $700. He was able to reduce rent in Clarksville to $650, whereas rent in Fayetteville could go down.
Additionally, Scallion is no stranger to Fayetteville as a University of Arkansas graduate.
"I was a Kappa Sigma at Fayetteville and enjoyed it. Graduated from here, and then went into banking for 22 years until I ultimately decided on a higher purpose and left the banking industry and started doing this," Scallion said.
City council members voted to rezone the area from a commercial zone to a community services zone, giving Scallion the green light to remodel the former motel.
"It's been really good to know that I'm going to be able to finally give back to the community that helped me when I was so much younger," he said.
Ward 2 City Council member Sarah Moore voted in favor of the rezoning. "We were very encouraged to hear what [Scallion] was willing to share about his project because it fulfills a part of our housing units that were identified back in the fall as being so lacking," Moore said.
The existing property has 105 rooms and will be called "The Nest" and will be available for anyone needing affordable housing – but Scallion says he's going after a certain population. "Our normal audience is social security, any fixed income, disability, social security, single moms, new young couples," he said.
Developers say they plan to transform the rooms into a studio apartment that can hold up to three people. There will be some one bedroom and two bedrooms at The Nest, but for the most part will be studio apartments with kitchenettes and full-sized fridges.
"They're granite throughout, so we make them as nice as we possibly can, somewhere someone can be proud to live," Scallion said.
With more and more student housing projects coming to Fayetteville, Scallion wanted to address the housing need by offering a fixed rental fee that includes utilities.
"One thing about us is we're trying to do it to where your housing cost is fixed. There is no other fee. Your rent includes electricity, water, sewer, gas, trash, WiFi, and laundry. We don't want anyone to have to worry about it. They know exactly what it is... They're able to budget because they need to budget more so than others," Scallion said.
The maximum rent at "The Nest" could cost up to $950 a month and developers say they want to get residents in as soon as possible. Pre-leasing will be available in about two months.
"We should have leasable units probably by the end of September, early October," Scallion said.
Watch 5NEWS on YouTube.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.