Residents hope buyer will rehab apartments But experts say slim chance Hidden Cove will be renovated

April 06, 1998|By Larry Carson | Larry Carson,SUN STAFF

Dundalk residents who last month rejected a government-aided plan to renovate the Hidden Cove Apartments over fears it would cater to the poor hold out hope that a new buyer will appear and convert the 32-year-old complex into elderly housing or condominiums.

But neither is likely, say a variety of county officials and real estate experts, who predict more slow decline for the unprofitable 30-acre waterfront complex in West Inverness, a densely populated community of about 2,000 brick townhouses.

The $9 million sale price, combined with the multimillion-dollar cost to renovate or demolish the 504-unit, three-story brick complex, makes any purchase or extensive redevelopment problematic without government aid, county officials and real estate experts say.

"The numbers won't crunch" for a conventionally financed deal, said county Councilman Louis L. DePazzo, a Dundalk Democrat who supported the planned renovation but was shouted down by angry residents at a raucous March 11 community meeting.

Some fear that failure to renovate Hidden Cove could undermine community revitalization efforts and leave an eyesore like the abandoned Riverdale apartments in Essex.

"If you've got a deteriorating community, Band-Aids won't work. You've got to do something," said Michael H. Rosen, chief executive officer of the Town and Country apartment chain, who once considered buying Hidden Cove. "The only way this is going to work is with some kind of subsidy. Otherwise, you'll end up like Riverdale."

At stake is the future of the peninsula community, where county police and community activists fear that their efforts to reduce crime and stop creeping blight are at risk.

Capt. Michael J. DiPaula of North Point Precinct said grant money and extra patrol efforts over the past two years have produced dramatic improvements, especially around Hidden Cove, which he said was once "infested with drugs."

In the first half of 1997, for example, DiPaula said police received 29 percent fewer disorderly conduct calls than in the same period a year before, and drug calls on the peninsula dropped 81 percent.

County code enforcement inspectors swept the townhouse section of the community in October, issuing more than 200 citations for abandoned or unlicensed vehicles, uncut grass and debris in yards.

County officials hoped that the plan by Southern Apartment Specialists Inc. of Orlando, Fla., to buy and renovate the complex would help preserve the whole community.

SASI negotiated for most of a year on a deal to pump $28 million into the complex, only to see the agreement fall apart at the last minute.

Inverness residents, fearing that a renovated Hidden Cove would be dominated by subsidized renters under the federal Section 8 program, shouted down county and SASI officials at the March 11 meeting, and voted 153-34 against the renovation at a second meeting March 24.

That vote killed any chance for the local government approval needed to seal the deal.

Richard T. Coley, chief operating officer of SASI, said the rejection leaves the apartments in need of extensive repairs and without the income to pay for them.

"They need roofs. They need windows," he said, adding that some ground-level units suffer from water leaks and some walls are saturated.

John Korman, vice president of the Philadelphia company that owns Hidden Cove, was reluctant to comment, saying only, "We're preparing to operate it as best we can," while weighing all options.

Patricia Herman, president of West Inverness Community Association, who presided over the lopsided vote that rejected the deal, said the company told her it will make cosmetic repairs and try to find another buyer.

But county officials are skeptical.

"You have an owner there who, in my opinion, has overvalued the worth of that property," County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger said of the proposed $9 million sale price.

While Herman and others in the neighborhood hope a new owner will convert the complex into condominiums or senior citizens housing, apartment professionals, such as Rosen, and those in the elderly housing field say the price makes that unlikely.

Despite that gloomy assessment, some West Inverness leaders stand behind the decision to block a deal they feared would convert their community into a haven for subsidized housing.

"We may be wrong. We don't know that, but at least we have a say in what our future will be," said Herman.

Pub Date: 4/06/98