Cedar View Apartments to get major overhaul

During a public hearing at last week’s Malta City Council meeting it was announced that the 32 units at the Cedar View Apartments in Malta will soon be getting facelifts. Homeward Inc. purchased the Cedar View Apartments two years ago from an out of state owner as part of a five-property portfolio. Homeward is a non-profit with the goal of providing and developing sustainable and affordable housing to people. Homeward was allocated low income tax credits by the Montana Board of Housing in 2013 and will start the Cedar View renovations in a couple of weeks.

“The primary things we are going to be doing are exterior building upgrades to improve the energy efficiency as well as put in new furnaces,” said Julie Stiteler, Housing Project Manager from Homeward, Inc, based out of Missoula and Billings.

Stiteler said the apartments will have new counter tops added to them, new cabinet doors, and new carpets and vinyl flooring where needed.

“They were maintained pretty well over the years, but the exterior siding was not very good quality to begin with ,” she said. “It looks really worn now, but the brick looks great.”

Stiteler added that the apartments, would have new insulation put into the walls, will be fitted with new windows and solar panels are in the plans. Stiteler said the laundry room will get new washers and dryers and added that about $40,000 has been allocated for the upgrades in each of the apartment (the new furnaces will be purchased outside of the $40,000.)

“We just finished Hillview (Apartments) over in Havre, which is 52 units, and the total there was closer to $70,000 per unit,” said Stiteler. “We had to do a lot more renovating there. This project in Malta is in a lot better shape to start out.”

Malta Mayor Shyla Jones asked Stiteler if local contractors would be hired for the job and if supplies would be bought locally. Stiteler said that Homeward tries to buy as many supplies locally as they can, but said that the contractor on the job, who is out of Billings, tried to find local subcontractors for the job to get bids, but had trouble finding anyone to submit bids.

Construction on the apartments is scheduled to be completed by mid-October of this year.

At the first City Council Meeting of March, Malta Opportunities Inc.’s Director Don Nevrivy told the board that MOI is looking into remodeling on Third Street.

“We are in the real preliminary stages,” Nevrivy said.

Nevrivy stressed that he was not making any formal requests from the Town of Malta but rather requesting a letter of recommendation from the council to submit to Bear Paw as well as ask the council if they would support MOI in any CDBG grants that they may apply for in the future.

“In fact, we have talked as a board about minimal fundraising,” said Nevrivy.

Nevrivy said that MOI would start with an architect report first.

“That building over there has served us well, but it has seen better days,” he said.

MOI currently employs 20 people and has 18 clients.

“We’ve got a decent group home,” said Nevrivy, “but our work center is somewhat embarrassing … it will come out in the report, and we will look at if it is better to move someplace else or stay where we are at, but that location where we are at works so well.”

“I don’t see any reason why we can’t put the request in to Bear Paw for you,” Mayor Jones said.

The City Members agreed with the mayor’s statement and voted in favor to help MOI go to Bear Paw to seek assistance for the work to be done.

In other news from last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Jones told the board members that City Works crewmember Jim Truelove was at Safety School and the Public Works team has been busy driving the street sweeper around town removing the ruble left from winter.

She also said that because of a few Public Works employees being laid-up and not able to work as of late that one member of the crew who was working at the city dump will be moving back to town for assistance.

Mayor Jones also said that members of the Havre Public Works team would be coming to Malta to use their camera on the sewers downtown to try and help find what is causing the “phantom smell” in the area. She said some digging would also being done around downtown at the same time.