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$5.7M makeover nears end at Hubbard Manor complex
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Barbara Clelind, 76, a three-year resident of Hubbard Manor apartments, enjoys the newly renovated apartment in which she lives. The 40-year-old complex is undergoing a $5.7 million renovation expected to be complete by the end of February.
Hubbard
Barbara Clelind has called Hubbard City home all her life and Hubbard Manor home for the past three years.
After the renovation of her fifth-floor apartment was completed in the fall, she noticed a big difference.
She said she loves the neutral-toned carpet, the new cabinets and the easy-access showers for wheelchair-bound residents like her.
The 76-year-old woman even appreciates the newly installed smoke alarm, as loud and sensitive as it is.
“You learn not to burn anything,” she said, while chatting with other residents in the fifth-floor hallway.
An almost-complete, $5.7 million renovation to the 40-year-old complex designed for seniors and the disabled is bringing it into the 21st century, one floor at a time.
It stands in Hubbard with West Park Manor and a future 34-unit apartment on Myron Street paid for by a $4.9 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant in November.
And because it is the same contractor, Vendrick Construction, working on the structures, Russell Osman, the general deputy director of Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority, said Hubbard Manor and the future complex will have similar layouts.
The residents already living in the apartments during renovation created logistical concerns beyond the ordering of supplies.
“What they did was move people in phases,” said Osman.
As floors were under construction, residents who could move to West Park Manor did. But for those who couldn’t, they were moved to other floors until renovation was complete. Then they were moved back.
“Their move was completely paid for,” Osman said.
“There’s a big difference,” said Helen Wagner, 12-year resident of the manor, of the renovation.
Construction on the third, fourth and fifth floors is complete, and Osman said they expect the whole renovation to be done in February.
While work was taking place on the fifth, where Wagner lives, she said the crews were completely respectful.
“They put up with us,” the 68-year-old said. “If we could, I’d throw a party for the workers.”
Renovation started in September on the 61-unit building using a grant from HUD.
Beyond the individual rooms, the complex itself was overhauled: new elevators, new off-brown and dark-blue hallways lighted with square fixtures.
Even the parking lot was renovated, and the entrance overhang, which dips downward like an elongated V, is a completely new addition. And the building was stripped of all asbestos.
The common area on the first floor is still under construction. Right now, plans are not complete on what will fill the long room that leads to an outdoor patio, Osman said. But because other apartments constructed by Vendrick have Nintendo Wii systems, he guesses Hubbard Manor may have the same.
“They redid everything to modernize it,” Osman said. “It looks more like a hotel.”
But seeing a unit filled with someone’s personal items, — such as Clelind’s, where pictures of family adorn a desk and her cat rests on her bed — makes Hubbard Manor a home.