Housing upgrade set to begin in June

The Endicott Hotel stands empty as it prepares for its metamorphosis this year from low-income housing to market-rate apartments.Last March, CATCH Neighborhood Housing announced it would undertake a major renovation of the 1890s-era building at the corner of South Main Street and Pleasant Street Extension, which the affordable-housing nonprofit bought in 1994.

The 36 apartments on the second, third and fourth floors of the building are set to become 25 one-, two- and three-bedroom units with rents ranging from $975 to $1,350 a month, heat and hot water included. The two vacant retail spaces on the ground floor will be renovated, too, though the Green

Martini will remain open throughout the work.The project has been embraced by city leaders: Creating more market-rate housing in downtown, which has many low-income apartments, is a longstanding goal of economic-development officials.

CATCH is aiming to kick off the five- to six-month construction project in June, said the group's president, Rosemary Heard.But first, the people who already lived in the Endicott Hotel - many of whom were poor, disabled or mentally ill - had to leave.

As of this month, Heard said, all 33 people who lived in the building 10 months ago have moved out. Four declined CATCH's help with moving and "just left of their own accord," she said. Four moved into assisted-living facilities, three in Concord and one in Manchester; 19 relocated within the city; two moved to Penacook; and one each moved to Manchester, Pittsfield, Laconia and Easthampton, Mass.

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Source: Concordmonitor.com