Community leaders strategize ways to develop St. Joseph housing

By Jenna Wilson

Community members gathered at the Chamber of Commerce on Monday afternoon to discuss the housing market in St. Joseph and ways that it can progress.

The housing task force group is working with business leaders and city officials to help the city grow and succeed, with one way being by providing adequate housing so more people can reside locally.

City leaders say one of the issues they’re working to address right now is finding a balance between providing enough housing to meet the demand of the entry-level workforce along with providing higher-end housing, but they’re headed in the right direction.

“When you understand St. Joseph’s dynamics compared to other community dynamics, just in the Midwest or nationally, the market itself here locally is doing better than some of the other markets nationwide,” said Clint Thompson, Planning and Community Development director. “That’s from a perspective of having additional residential base and a market force that can attract the housing to grow as opposed to some areas that have overbuilt in the past ten years.”

St. Joseph is continuing to see new jobs come to the area, and the call for more is only increasing. Officials say the demand for housing needs to meet the demand of the growing economic conditions.

They plan to repurpose some existing properties in hopes of meeting the demand of new businesses.

“We’re looking at not only how can we do new development, but also repurpose some existing development in our older neighborhoods to take advantage of that infrastructure that already exists in our community,” Thompson said. “This is not only to provide the need that exists for housing, but part of that is to revitalize some of our older neighborhoods and help to attract reinvestment in and around our Downtown area.”