The East Central Community Organization, of Spokane, has been awarded more than $2.5 million by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to build an independent-living facility for low-income elderly residents here.


The project will involve building a two-story, 25-unit structure on just over an acre of property at the north side of Fifth Avenue between Lee Street and Stone Street, says Jerry Numbers, chairman of the East Central Neighborhood Steering Committee/Council.


The housing project will be located just north of the East Central Community Center, which might work with the facility to coordinate programs for the tenants.


The neighborhood steering committee decided about three years ago that the East Central neighborhood needed an independent-living facility and needed the East Central Community Organizations (ECCO) designation as a nonprofit to obtain the HUD grant, Numbers says. ECCO will set up a board of directors, separate from its own, to own and manage the facility. The city of Spokane, which owns the property, will transfer ownership of the site to that new organization, he says.


Kiemle & Hagood Co., of Spokane, is developing the project for ECCO, and Zeck Butler Architects PS, of Spokane, is designing the facility, Numbers says. ECCO hopes to select a contractor in February and start construction by next October. The project probably will take about six months to complete and will cost nearly $2.2 million, he says. The remaining grant money will be used for a five-year rental subsidy. The subsidy means that residents, whose income must be less than 50 percent of the Spokane areas median income, will pay 30 percent of their adjusted income for rent, and HUD will pay the remainder, he says.