Fulton Apartments' perks include setting aside 10 percent of the rent for a mortgage down payment.
By ANGIE GREEN
Published June 25, 2003
CLEARWATER - Fulton Street Apartments' long-awaited makeover is nearly complete. The city, after pumping nearly $1-million dollars into the rundown complex, plans to reopen it next week - with some added perks for tenants.
The complex, now called Fulton Apartments, has gone through a transformation.
The newly painted peach and tan apartments with colorful crotons skirting its borders are a far cry from the dingy, peeling exterior and bare dirt yard that it once had.
New walls, fresh with eggshell paint, have replaced the battered drywall. The roof has been re-shingled to stop the leaks. Grass has replaced bare earth.
"It looks like a whole new place," exclaimed Tina Dawson, one of the four tenants who plan to move in July. "Before, you would drive by and not even notice it. Now you would be like, "Heeey.' "
Dawson couldn't hide her zeal about the new white decorative fence that lines the property's perimeter, either. "That is soooo cute," she said. The fence has several beige columns with white tops.
Dawson, 31, remembers the city-owned apartments from her childhood. She used to visit her aunt there when Dawson was in middle school. Dawson said her three young boys can't figure out why she gets so excited about the complex's new look. They can't remember, she says.
The apartments at 1602-1618 Fulton Ave., which closed in February 2001 for renovations, had bathroom sinks nearly falling to the floor, faulty stair railings, wobbly shower sockets and no central heat or air conditioning.
City code-enforcement officers visited the property the year before it closed and found peeling paint and holes covered with plywood.
Now, new, white stoves and refrigerators sit on the new vinyl floors. Kitchen counter tops and cabinets have been replaced. Bathrooms are completely redone. New gray, brown or emerald carpet fills the one-, two- or three-bedroom apartments.
"The whole place has been completely renovated," said Jerry Spilatro, executive director of the housing agency that plans to buy the property from the city next month. "Everything has been redone."
And the look of the place is not all that has changed.
Spilatro's agency, the Community Service Foundation, is a countywide, nonprofit organization that manages affordable housing. It specializes in helping renters become home owners. Residents of Fulton Apartments will be eligible to become a part of their "Partnership-to-Ownership program," which provides free workshops on family budgeting, getting a mortgage and housing counseling.
Residents who pay their rents on time - they range from $424 to $675 a month - will have 10 percent of it set aside to be used for a mortgage down payment, he said.
All new renters will receive a one-year family membership to the North Greenwood Recreation and Aquatic Complex, just blocks away from Fulton Avenue.
Residents' kids will also get Easter baskets, Christmas gifts and back to school clothes given through the foundation.
Spilatro said school clothes won't be provided this year because there won't be enough time to collect the numbers and sizes. As of Monday, four tenants are scheduled to move into the 19 unit complex.
The apartments will have a mixture of low and moderate income renters, said Howie Carroll, the city's assistant housing director. Apartment leasing is not exclusive to families, said Carroll.
"Singles are welcome, too," he said. Applicants are subject to criminal and credit checks, said Spilatro. Anyone with a drug-related charge in the last five years will not qualify, he said.
For information, call the Community Service Foundation at 461-0618.
