A former nursing home converted into 11 apartments for seniors soft-opened this weekend on State Street in Augusta.

Tony and Lori Noonan, of the Waterville-based Property Minders construction and management company, bought 313 State St. for just over $1 million in November 2024 and renovated the shuttered assisted living facility on the site.

The six two-bedroom and five one-bedroom units will soon be available to rent at market price for people aged 55 and older, a designation allowed under federal housing rules.

Capital City Manor closed in July 2024 after a series of violations that resulted in a mandated corrective plan. It was one of more than a dozen nursing homes to close in Maine in the aftermath of the pandemic.

The Noonans, though, saw potential in the property. They have developed other housing across the region, including renovating homes.

“(Lori) is our design expert,” Tony Noonan said. “She has the vision where she can just walk into a building and say, ‘This is what it’s going to be.’ And that’s exactly what she did there.”

Just over a year later, construction was complete, with few hiccups and enthusiastic support from the city, Noonan said. He noted some city officials have told him the units are “some of the nicest apartments in Augusta right now.”

Keith Luke, Augusta’s director of economic development, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the apartments were fully leased by the end of the month, given its location and appeal.

“This is a market rate project and it took what might have been considered a distressed property with a closing nursing home facility and converted it into market rate units,” Luke said. “That’s a win in any community.”

A fair market-rate rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Kennebec County, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is $1,090 per month. The two-bedroom market rate is $1,416 per month.

Luke said the project not only fills an unused property, but fits the myriad of housing needs in Augusta. A 2022 MaineHousing report found that more than 400 additional senior housing units were needed in the city to meet needs.

The Noonans’ project also did not require tax increment financing subsidies from the city — unlike other recent projects. TIFs allow municipalities to shelter property taxes generated by new development within designated districts, lowering tax burden on developers and allowing the town or city to re-invest money into that area. Under credit enhancement agreements, a portion of that value can be paid to developers.

With much of central Maine’s housing vacancy rate “verging on nil,” Luke said, any new units help reduce strain on the housing stock. Kennebec County needs about 5,000 more units of housing by 2030 to catch up with past under-building and keep up with demand, a 2023 MaineHousing report showed.

More than 1,000 units are in Augusta’s housing pipeline, including three projects of more than 100 units — on Civic Center Drive, Eight Rod Road and Union Street. Other, smaller projects seek to convert Augusta buildings close to downtown into dozens of apartments.

Enticing developers to build housing in the city to ease the housing shortage has been a top goal of city officials for the last several years, including in the City Council’s goal-setting meeting held in January. This year, City Council members specifically plan to prioritize housing through offering targeted incentives to developers, supporting redevelopment projects and encouraging mixed-income developments.

City officials also are looking at housing as a tool to help end homelessness in Augusta. The city’s Task Force on Homelessness’ top recommendation for city officials was to build more housing, regardless of price point. The task force’s report relied on research that showed “expanding the supply of housing at all levels can help alleviate market pressures, indirectly making housing more attainable for those in need.”

“(The City Council’s) emphasis is on housing across the board — housing in every way,” Luke said. “We’re not just targeting and encouraging and attempting to attract affordable housing. We want all types of housing in Augusta. One of the taglines that I’ve been using is that Augusta is Maine’s housing capital. This just further puts an exclamation point at the end of that statement.”