_{Thumbnail photo: The new Harbor Point Apartment building on H Street in Crescent City is already at capacity. | Photo by James Brooks}

Eric Wier congratulated his staff and the City Council when he announced the official ribbon cutting of a new senior apartment complex on H Street.

It was through their work that Crescent City secured the $5 million Competitive Permanent Local Housing Allocation grant that allowed Arcata-based DANCO Communities the tax credits needed develop Harbor Point Apartments, the city manager said Monday. 

The ribbon-cutting will take place at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, but the 27-unit apartment building is already at occupancy, Wier told Redwood Voice Community News.

“There was a serious demand,” he said. “As soon as they were ready to be occupied, even though the project wasn’t 100% done as far as the finishing touches, they went ahead and moved residents in.”

Harbor Point Apartments is one of several housing developments being planned for Crescent City. According to the Crescent City’s Housing Element, the city needs to provide space for 189 housing units through 2030. 

With the DANCO project finished and another housing complex in the works — Battery Point Apartments on E Street near Joe Hamilton Elementary School — Crescent City has issued building permits for more than 300 units, Wier said. 

“It is broken into categories, so you have low, moderate and above moderate,” he said. “We have met them all except for the above moderate (housing).”

DANCO entered into its first disposition and development agreement with Crescent City in 2015, eyeing the former El Patio Motel site on H Street near Sixth for senior housing. The Crescent City Housing Authority committed 26 project-based housing vouchers to the development in 2017.

Construction began on the apartment complex in April 2024. According to Housing Authority Director Megan Miller, she began adding potential tenants to a waiting list for housing vouchers in July 2025. They started moving in right after the complex received its certificate of occupancy in late October. It was full within 30 days, Miller said.

“A lot of people were just interested,” she said, adding that all of the tenants had Del Norte County addresses before moving to Harbor Point Apartments. “It’s brand new and it’s got a great location. Even if they had been somewhere that they were happy living at, it’s an opportunity to upgrade to a brand new unit.”

At Battery Point Apartments, spearheaded by the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Synergy Community Development Corporation, 40 of the 160 total units will be available to seniors. According to Miller, while the waiting list has opened for project-based voucher recipients, the Housing Authority has yet to assign units to their clients.

“The reason for the is they want to have the people sent over approximately three months before they open,” she said, of the developer. “That way the information is current. They have to obtain different eligibility documents on their end and they want to keep that current.”

There isn’t an exact timeframe on when Battery Point Apartments will be ready for occupancy, Wier said. But the senior housing part of the complex will be open first.

“We’re thinking it’ll be later in 2026,” he told Redwood Voice.

The remaining 120 units at Battery Point Apartments will be slated for workforce housing, Miller said. In addition to the 40 project-based housing vouchers available for senior housing at Battery Point, 30 will be designated for families, she said.

“Once we get a realistic timeline from (Synergy) on when they’re going to open, we would time sending over applications to seniors and families,” Miller said, referring to the voucher program. “We expect they will fill up the same way Harbor Point did.”

Currently, the Crescent City Housing Authority isn’t pulling any names from its waiting list for either a housing voucher or a project-based housing voucher, Miller said. However when it does, applicants who already live in Del Norte County will receive priority over non-Del Norte County residents, Miller said. Since the project-based housing voucher program is new, Miller said there aren’t any out-of-county applicants on that waiting list.

As Crescent City continues to work toward meeting its Housing Element goals, it still needs to fill 101 above-moderate income housing units, Wier said. A 14-unit townhouse development proposed for 708 J Street will address that need, he said.

That complex, spearheaded by Elk Creek Builders LLC owner Sam Schauerman, will go before the Crescent City Planning Commission for an architect review on Thursday, Wier said. The Planning Commission was slated to discuss the proposed development last month, however due to the lack of a quorum that meeting was canceled, he said.

More housing is also planned for Downtown Crescent City. On Dec. 1, Mike Bahr, CEO of Community System Solutions, introduced the City Council to the Redwood Downtown, a mixed-use development project that would take the place of the old Daly’s department store at 3rd and J streets.

Bahr said his goal was for the development to be under construction in 2027 with a ribbon cutting about a year later. The City Council at that meeting agreed to loan Bahr about $1.05 million in California Department of Housing and Community Development grant dollars. The city is required to use that funding to build at least four units of available housing, Wier told Councilors on Dec. 1.

On Tuesday, Wier told Redwood Voice that more housing units was “one of the key focal points identified for economic development.”

“If you look at our downtown-specific plan, those are also important to get more residential units in the downtown,” he said. “That’ll help drive a more thriving downtown economy that doesn’t shut down after 5 p.m.”

With Harbor Point Apartments already at capacity and its official ribbon-cutting approaching, DANCO received the Del Norte Pride Award at the Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards dinner on Jan. 25, Wier said. 

The Chamber of Commerce also recognized another former city employee who had been instrumental in the apartment complex’s development — former city manager Michael Young. Young received the chamber’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Wier said.

“Michael Young (was) city manager in 1973 to 1979 and then was public works director for the city from 2000 to 2003 and then we pulled him back in as city manager not once but twice, 2007 and 2017, and has worked on countless city projects,” Wier said. “That was a pretty special moment for him and certainly well deserved from the city side of things.”