Instead, the four buildings on East Walnut Street now house 34 apartments whose target residents are low-income households, a group that, so far, has been largely ignored in downtown's redevelopment frenzy.

The apartments will rent for between $325 and $395 per month, a far cry from the $800 and up that is typical downtown.

"Downtown had lots of student housing. And it had lots of high-end housing. It just didn't have anything in between," said Tammi Creason, who coordinated the Walnut Apartments project for Carlson Gardner Inc., a low-income development company that is co-owned by Springfield Mayor Tom Carlson.

The Walnut Apartments not only fill a hole in downtown Springfield, they will help plug a regional gap in affordable housing.

A 10-county area in southwest Missouri, excluding the city of Springfield, has a list of 1,891 households waiting for subsidized housing, according to the Ozarks Area Community Action Corp. Springfield has its own waiting list that's about 1,000 people deep, according to the Springfield Housing Authority.

"There's a great need all over the area," said Carl Rosenkranz, OACAC's executive director.

Chuck Marinec sees another benefit in the project.

Marinec coordinates the city's low-income housing grants, and he attended college in Springfield in the 1960s. Even at that time, the four apartment buildings on East Walnut Street were in poor shape.

"And it's all been downhill from there," Marinec said. The developers "have turned tremendous eyesores into tremendous assets."

Creason said she had never seen recently occupied buildings in such poor shape.

There was a cockroach infestation. Mold on the walls. Holes everywhere.

Creason took pictures. "The only thing you can't see in these pictures is the smell," she said.

FUNDING THE PROJECT

Historic redevelopment is not cheap, however, and it's rarely done for low-income projects because the rent tenants eventually pay simply doesn't make the projects financially worthwhile.

Unless, of course, developers can tap into state and federal tax credits.

Carlson Gardner did just that in this case and in projects the company has done around the state.

The company funded the approximately $4 million project with the help of state and federal historic-preservation and low-income-housing tax credits. The project has been approved for low-income-housing tax credits totaling more than $9 million over 10 years and a one-time historic tax credit worth about $2 million.

Those credits are sold on the open market, often for less than the stated value, in order to finance the project.

And, without the credits, the new apartments simply wouldn't exist.

"It couldn't have been done without (the credits). It's so much cheaper to build new than to renovate these old buildings," Carlson said.

So why do it?

"Because we love these historic buildings," Carlson answered.

The Walnut Apartments is Carlson Gardner's first project in Springfield, but the company already has another project under way. Three historic buildings near Jefferson and Elm streets will be converted to 52 low-income apartments in 2006.

OLD MEETS RENEWED

Still, historic buildings present a challenge.

Certain features must be preserved and that leads to sometimes interesting details in the buildings.

Apartments with fireplaces. Tiled foyers. Huge windows surrounded by wood trim.

And in one apartment in the Englenook building at 700 E. Walnut St., a bedroom has an unusual window.

The bedroom had an unusable exterior door (with a window in it) but no regular window. The developers weren't allowed to cut a new window and they weren't allowed to replace the door with a window because that would compromise the building's historic character.

But current guidelines require a fire escape window.

Solution? Saw the door in half and seal the bottom half shut. The top half opens like a window.

"It just epitomizes working with current guidelines in a 100-year-old building," said Creason.