Since then, the city has tried several times to lure residents back downtown. Where people are, shops and offices will follow, the thinking goes. But so far, few landlords have made a profit on the idea. It has been 12 years since Marc Poutasse and other investors converted a vacant hotel on City Hall Avenue into the Fairfax apartments. Despite lackluster interest at first, the building's 56 units have been nearly full since a year after it opened, but it has not made money, he said.
Renovations cost several hundred thousand dollars more than budgeted.
And despite low-interest loans, federal tax credits for fixing a historic building and rents slightly higher than in neighboring Ghent, the Fairfax's income only recently covered the debt. Those who have tried have more often than not met with failure. Two sets of developers of the Flatiron Building on Granby and Charlotte streets planned apartments in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but none were built. The first group signed contracts on fewer than half of the units before running out of money and filing for federal bankruptcy protection. The site is now a park.