The Kansas Housing Resources Corporation has approved the application for the developers of the Wiley Building in Hutchinson opening the doors for the nearly 100-year structure to be saved and once again become part of the downtown landscape. The state approved 713- thousand dollars in tax credits for the project which will turn the building into affordable housing units.

Manske and Associates want to completely renovate the property into a mix of retail, two floors of office Space, 18-units of market rate housing and 37-units of income based rental housing.

The cost to renovate the property is estimated at 14.3-million dollars while the total cost will be around 16.9-million.

This is the 79th project the developers have worked on since 1988.

Others in our area include Evergreen Townhomes which was done in two phases, Coventry Court Townhomes also completed in two phases, Maplewood Townhomes, Walnut Court Apartments, Crown Homes of Arlington, Tierra Verde Apartments, The Hutchinson Lofts in the Old South Hospital, and Friendship Place in South Hutchinson.

Hutchinson City Manager John Deardoff called the news exciting and says they will be meeting with the developers within the next two weeks to see where they go from here. He says the developer had indicated earlier that if they got the tax credits, the project could begin next fall or early winter.

The city had reached a memorandum of understanding with the developer. The city agreed that they would provide the real estate necessary for a multi-level parking structure at First & Walnut, which the city would pay to have built.

They would fund this through some form of municipal fund tool. City Manager John Deardoff believes the cost for that will in a range of 1.9 to 2.5 million dollars. He said earlier that the city would eventually deed that real estate to a not-for-profit entity and would be included in the development agreement.