Firefly Commons Apartments Completed
Our new Firefly Commons project in Elkins is complete and fully leased. The 16-unit development is made up of six duplexes and a 4-unit townhome. After many years of community planning, Woodlands broke ground on the $4.2M project October 2021 and residents moved in this past December.
Twelve of the units are or can be made fully accessible, and with individual entrances, yard space, and a community green in the middle, the development is intended to be family-friendly, mixed generation housing. Most tenants are from the local community and surrounding counties.
Back in the summer of 2022, Anne Schoonover, had been given notice that the apartment she’d been living in for 15 years on the other side of Elkins was not going to be available anymore. “A friend of mine heard they were putting this in, so I called and got on the list. I was real lucky to call when I did,” she said. “I have bad knees and back. Before I had six steps but here, I have no steps and a walk-in shower, which I love.”
Sitting at her kitchen table in her two-bedroom duplex apartment, Schoonover, gestures at the room around her, “I’ve never really had a place this nice and this roomy. Now I can finally say I have my first real home.”
Woodlands Director Dave Clark organized community discussions back in 2014 that eventually led the organization to develop this project. “There were several significant funding and logistics hurdles to clear for this project to happen so we are thrilled to finally see it come to fruition and serve the housing needs of this area,” Clark said.
“Final financing for the project came,” Clark said, “from a variety of sources and some of our great local partners, including Grant County Bank, Pendleton Community Bank and the WV Housing Development Fund.” Mountain Valley Bank and the City of Elkins also played key roles in moving the project to reality.
Woodlands was formed in 1995 to address housing and community development needs in Randolph, Barbour, and Tucker Counties. Woodlands believes that healthy, vibrant communities have safe and engaging neighborhoods that provide housing for all people. To apply for a unit at Firefly Commons, download/print and fill out this rental application, or call 304.636.6495 to request a rental application packet be mailed to you. Some income restrictions apply.
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