Former Notre Dame hoops star to get tax credits for South Bend affordable housing project

SOUTH BEND ― A third low-income housing development planned in South Bend will receive financing after state officials chose former Notre Dame basketball standout Devereaux Peters as an emerging developer.

Chateaux 14 Development, Peters' company, plans to build The Monreaux apartments at the intersection of Michigan and Monroe Streets in downtown South Bend.

Replacing what used to be the Fat Daddy's surplus store, the four-story building at 505 S. Michigan St. will feature rent prices below market rates for at least 46 of its 60 units. State officials mentioned Peters' planned amenities that would support budding small businesses and entrepreneurs as part of the reason they selected her.

Devereaux Peters:Former Notre Dame basketball star says leaving campus helped her see the other South Bend

Building The Monreaux is expected to cost $16.9 million, according to Peters' proposal. Last year, the South Bend Common Council supported the effort with a plan to reduce Peters' tax burden by $432,000 and to spend $1.5 million on updated street infrastructure around the complex.

"I feel that my time in South Bend is really what helped me develop into a woman, through the relationships I built, the people that I met," Peters told The Tribune in July, mentioning South Bend native and Notre Dame teammate Skylar Diggins-Smith as well as Muffet McGraw, her Hall of Fame head coach, and Niele Ivey, who was Peters' assistant coach and now leads the Fighting Irish women's basketball program.

Because Peters didn't win financing in the initial round, she said construction will be delayed by a year. She expects work to begin in spring 2024 and to finish by the end of 2025.

On Thursday, she called the project "the biggest accomplishment of my entire life." Peters, now 33, was the third overall pick in the 2012 WNBA Draft and played basketball professionally for years before retiring in 2019.

Her transition from athlete to developer has been difficult and full of uncertainty, she told The Tribune Thursday.

Playing basketball had become second nature to her, she said. She was an expert. So shifting into a new field that required her to deal with unfamiliar problems, ones not as easily solved with muscle memory, was jarring.

"When you transition in to a different field, a different career, you're starting all over again," Peters said during a phone call. "It's hard going from one end of the spectrum to the other.

"Finally being able to get to the point where I can complete a project is just really rewarding.”

The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority announced last week that two other South Bend projects will receive tax credits to build low-income housing. The credits make it financially viable for developers to offer well-built units below market rental rates.

Peters and two other developers collectively plan to bring 160 affordable units to South Bend, in addition to 74 market-rate units. City officials and activists repeatedly stress the need for more lower-income housing in light of rapidly rising market rents.

South Bend Heritage Foundation received funding for SB Thrive, its 54-unit housing development on the northeast side of town. Real America Development, an Indianapolis affordable housing firm, got financing to build Diamond View Apartments, a 60-unit project near Four Winds Field. The latter company plans to build an adjacent 60-unit building for market-rate tenants.

Peters was not one of 17 developers to win credits in IHCDA's initial decision regarding its Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program. Neither was AP Development, which for years has tried to win money to fund a renovation of the old Marquette School building on the near northwest side.

But state officials chose Peters as one of two first-time developers to receive financing. The other is an Indianapolis property that will lease units to single parents and their children.

IHCDA said the surplus credits target developers who come from historically disadvantaged groups. Businesses owned by women, racial minorities, veterans and people with disabilities get priority.

"First-time (Rental Housing Tax Credit) developers often face financial and institutional barriers to entering the development industry and obtaining financial resources," IHCDA said in a statement Thursday. "Through this initiative, IHCDA seeks to intentionally build capacity for emerging developers."

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09