This 30-unit apartment building will replace a parking lot and Dunkin’ at 542 Broad St. in Central Falls if funding can be secured for the project. Provided By One Neighborhood Builders
In 2021, Rivera held a housing summit over Zoom, then wrote a housing report with the Latino Policy Institute.
Armed with the report, Rivera went to city staff to implement the changes and to state leaders for money to help buy properties for housing.
A little over a year later, Central Falls has taken the state grant money, purchased two properties and is partnering with a nonprofit developer to create 47 new housing units in a new four-story apartment building and the conversion of the city’s former jail and courthouse into housing.
Central Falls Solicitor Matt Jerzyk said the city approached the owner of a closed Dunkin’, took them to housing court and used state funds to buy the property and combine it with an adjacent parking lot, and then also bought the former courthouse across the street.
47 units spread across two buildings
The housing project involves two buildings diagonally across from each other. The former courthouse and police station, at 511 Broad St., will remain and be turned into apartments, while the former Dunkin’, at 542 Broad St., and an adjacent parking lot will be replaced by an apartment building.
The apartment building on the Dunkin’ site will be four stories tall as it faces Broad Street. The land slopes upward in the rear and there, the building will be three stories along Summit Street. All of the project’s two- and three-bedroom units will be in the new apartment building.
“I wish we could have all three-bedrooms, but we have to figure out how to get more for less,” Rivera said.
Related links:
- Broad Street Homes
The former courthouse and police station will be turned into one-bedroom apartments because the spaces are too small for larger units, said One Neighborhood Builders Executive Director Jennifer Hawkins.
| Apartment types/sizes | Number of apartments |
| Up to 30% Area Median Income | 6 |
| Up to 60% Area Median Income | 41 |
| Efficiency | 1 |
| 1-bedoom | 19 |
| 2-bedroom | 21 |
| 3-bedroom | 6 |
How affordable is affordable?
All of the units in the development will be limited to people making up to 60% of the area’s median income; six apartments will be limited to 30% of the AMI. The rents will be set by regulation, but are roughly 30% of a household’s income.
For Central Falls, and all but six coastal communities, 60% of the area median income, or AMI, is:
- 1 person, $40,620
- 2 people, $46,440
- 3 people, 52,260
- 4 people, 58,020
- 5 people, 62,700
- 6 people, $67,320
