Housing, hardware EDC topics
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
Underwood’s economic developer Wendy Spencer has a list of things to follow up on after Thursday’s regular monthly meeting of the Underwood Area Economic Development Corporation.
She’s been asked to find out what people are looking for when they say they want affordable senior housing, and to find out whether or not Underwood could/would support an actual "hardware store" if one of the local businesses expands its inventory to carry more hardware.
"We do need to start small," said Spencer, when EDC President Joe Fleischmann said that he had hoped there would have been more visible progress with the EDC after this past year’s annual meeting in May.
At that annual meeting, the idea of building more senior housing was unanimously agreed upon. EDC board member Graydon Ash had said a lot of seniors would like to stay in Underwood, but they would like to be able to live in a home where they don’t have to do the maintenance, yard work and snow removal – needs that townhomes would fill.
Mic Johnson, newly elected to the EDC and a former board member of the Underwood Housing Authority which owns the townhomes on Borchardt Ave., said the one-floor, two and three-bedroom townhomes have been well received by its occupants, speculating that if more were built, they would also be occupied quickly.
