What's at stkae?
The Fresno City Council will be asked to continue extending the deadline for a developer to secure funding for a high-density student housing project in downtown.
The Fresno City Council will consider another financial lifeline for a downtown housing development that has already been stuck in limbo for more than a decade.
The project, known as The Park At South Stadium Apartments, is a proposed eight-story apartment building just south of Chukchansi Park on a parking lot at Fulton and Inyo Streets. The development will include a mix of affordable and market rate studio, two- and three- bedroom apartments for student housing.
Specifically, the council will be asked to approve $11 million in funding through two resolutions, with eight million coming from a revolving city loan for downtown housing projects. Three million would come from state or federal funds, according to city documents, though there are no specifics on what those sources are.
The proposed funding comes months after the city agreed last year to enter a new development agreement with the project’s developer The Park Partners LLC, co-managed by Mehmet Noyan and Jeff Isenstadt.
Last year’s agreement proposed 160 apartments, but Thursday’s proposal has the development committing to build 174 units.
The agreement also required the developers to identify and secure $84 million for the project by this month. The development agreement indicates that the developer is relying on $67 million in unspecified bond proceeds by close of escrow.
At the November meeting, the city leaders included a way for the City of Fresno to back out of the project if the developers couldn’t secure full financial backing by this Saturday.
“I think setting a drop-dead date of February 28 of (2026) is good for them to be able to do the things that they say they’re going to do,” Dyer said at the November meeting.
He later added, “I think we’ve learned from the mistakes of our past as a city, where we’ve provided development agreements and extended them well beyond their useful life.”
In an emailed statement to Fresnoland late Tuesday, the mayor explained his change of heart.
“We have come up with a creative financing plan that will allow this project to become profitable for the builder,” Dyer said.
The mayor said the city would loan the project about $11.7 million, in total, which Dyer said would allow the developers to secure the rest of the long-awaited funding from the bond market.
“This $82 million investment will serve as a catalyst for accelerated housing in our South Stadium portion of downtown,” Dyer said in the statement. “Several other projects will follow soon. Stay tuned.”
Dyer and his administration inherited the housing project when they first took office in 2021, which even at that point had seen failure to launch.
The project received its first grant award in 2016, after the developers entered an initial 120-day exclusive agreement with the city in January of 2015.
Since then, the developers have failed to secure enough private financing to get the housing project off the ground.
Last year, the project was part of a rejected bid by Noyan to the State Center Community College District to build student housing on the site. A previous version of the project was also denied an extension to the developer’s ‘exclusive negotiating agreement’ by the Fresno City Council in 2022.
Like multiple city leaders before him, Dyer has been vocal about his hopes to see a revitalized downtown Fresno.
Fresno’s predominantly suburban tract developers have routinely looked away from downtown, citing outdated infrastructure that is not suitable for modern, dense housing projects.
Gov. Gavin Newsom committed $293.7 million to help the city modernize its
infrastructure, though the state’s constantly shifting budget status has led to those payments coming in yearly installments.
The governor’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year includes the final installment of nearly $300 million commitment. It remains to be seen if the funding allocation will survive the May revisions.
Thursday’s vote could provide the city council the chance to either double-down on their commitment on the Noyan project, or choose to give other developers a chance to propose ideas for a plot of prime real estate in the core of the city.
