Maysville Rotary Club speaker has big plans

The buyer of Hayswood Hospital in Maysville hopes to turn the building into housing units in the coming years.

In November 2022, Frontier Housing purchased Hayswood Hospital with plans to renovate the property and turn it into housing.

Frontier Housing was founded in 1974 by churches in northeastern Kentucky to address affordable housing needs in the area. It is a nonprofit organization. Frontier’s mission is to be a leading affordable housing solution in the Appalachian communities of Ohio River Valley. Currently, Frontier serves various counties in the state. These include Bath, Boyd, Bracken, Carter, Elliot, Fleming, Greenup, Lawrence, Magoffin, Mason, Menifee, Montgomery, Morgan, Robertson, and Rowan County.

According to President and CEO Tom Manning-Beavin, who addressed the Maysville Rotary Club Tuesday, Frontier has constructed 815 new homes, rehabilitated 325 homes, and packaged acquisition financing for over 300 home buyers.

Part of Frontier’s goal is to remain a one-stop shop for customers so they may get financing and management of construction projects they need.

“If somebody is interested in buying a house and they just need a mortgage, we can be their advisor on that and we actually package that,” said Manning-Beavin. “If someone wants to build a new home or knows a home that needs a lot of work, we could be the entity that helps them think through the construction process and provides the resources and the expertise.”

In total, Frontier has 33 site rentals across several counties. One of these is Boodry Place in Morehead, where 32 units of elderly housing have been leased-up since 2008. There is also a 38-unit development in Robertson County, according to Manning-Beavin.

Manning-Beavin said Frontier is proud to partner with the city of Maysville to envision a way to revitalize the historic property which is Hayswood.

After purchasing the property in November, plans and phases began to take action in the restoration of Hayswood. Frontier submitted a Brownfield clean-up grant request to the Environmental Protection Agency shortly after purchasing the property. The EPA has a cap of $2 million when giving grants to applicants. There have been developing plans over the past few months.

Hayswood was originally built in 1915 and functioned from 1920 through 1983. Given its history and age, a series of phases were set in place to make the property safer. First, Frontier began phase one of its plan. Phase one consisted of conducting a study to find any problems with the property. This will often lead to phase two. In this phase, soil and wall samples will be taken to get data and see what exactly is impacting the condition of the property. After phase two was conducted, it was officially revealed that asbestos and lead were within the interior of the abandoned hospital.

After hiring a structural engineer to review the property, a cost of $1.9 million is estimated to clean up the property. With some additional help and funds from Buffalo Trace to manage the grant, Frontier received $2 million for the project in place.

Some of the next steps after receiving a grant for Frontier is to work with an architect to create preliminary drawings to see what is possible for the structure. According to Manning-Beavin, Frontier is already aware of some steel beams needing to be replaced. Most of the original structure is solid, and will not need much work done to it. Some cannot be saved. Manning-Beavin would also like to give opportunities for community members to discuss what they would like to see done in the building.

Manning-Beavin said there are roughly 96,000 square feet on the property, but estimates 80,000 square feet to be usable. With this, there will be 25 to 75 units in use. There is currently no set target audience for Hayswood units. Manning-Beavin feels the property could be leased to elderly tenants or families. Frontier may consider condos on the property.

Frontier’s project is estimated to be funded in 18 months and, upon funding, units will be ready to be leased in three and a half years.