All the splendor had left the Hotel Berry.

Once one of the finer places to stay in Sacramento, Calif., the 1920s building fell on hard times.

“The bones of the building were great, but it had suffered serious neglect over its 80 years,” says Michael Massie, housing development director at Jamboree Housing Corp.

The nonprofit has restored the building into a mixed-use development, featuring 104 furnished studio apartments reserved for low-income and special-needs residents earning between 30 percent and 45 percent of the area median income. Ten units serve formerly homeless individuals with mental illness.

Jamboree Housing accomplished the turnaround after others failed. Years earlier, another firm had received low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs) to rehab the building but could not complete the deal.

The Sacramento Housing and Re­de­velopment Agency (SHRA) then ac­quired the property and sold it to Jamboree while remaining a key partner.

SHRA provided $10 million in funding for the $26.1 million development. The team secured another $13.6 million from the LIHTC exchange program created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The funds were used to bolster the aging structure with two steel-braced frames. Jamboree preserved the hotel’s historic details while adding new sustainable building systems. Retail space for a deli is also included.

Renamed The Studios at Hotel Berry, the development helps fulfill a city goal of retaining at least 712 single-room occupancy units downtown.

“We have a beautiful jewel that we brought back to its highest glory,” Massie says.

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