Goode House to Be Used for Senior Housing : Preservation: A new developer will be sought to restore the 104-year-old house and build apartments on three adjoining lots.

GLENDALE —  After seven years of failed attempts by private developers to save the historic Goode House, Glendale officials agreed Tuesday to buy the property for senior citizen housing.

The city Housing Authority unanimously voted to buy the 104-year-old house at 119 N. Cedar St. and adjoining lots for $723,869 from developer Joe Ayvazi of Cedar Broadway Partnership of Glendale.

Officials hope to find a new developer to restore the house and build a separate apartment complex with as many as 27 units for low-income senior citizens, said Madalyn Blake, community development and housing director. She said a new proposal may be announced by the end of the year.

The badly deteriorated house--Glendale’s last example of Queen Anne/Eastlake architecture--is on the verge of collapse, city officials said. It has been vacant for years and repeatedly stripped by vandals and scavengers of Victorian hardware.

With the city’s purchase, Mayor Carl Raggio said, “finally we have something positive going for us.”

Ayvazi had been unable to obtain financing since 1989, when the city approved his plans to restore the house and build a 40-unit senior housing project around it. Last year, the city pledged to spend as much as $750,000 to help finance Ayvazi’s proposed $3.85-million project.

Blake said Ayvazi and his partners “gave absolutely their best effort to put together a project on this site” and blamed poor economic conditions for the deal’s collapse. She said the new proposal is likely to be far smaller in scale.

Under city zoning laws, 17 multiple units could be built on the three lots at the Goode House site. As many as 10 more could be permitted under state and city density bonuses granted for low-income or senior housing, Blake said.

The fate of the house has seesawed since 1985, when a previous developer planned to demolish it and build apartments. That led to creation of the city’s Historical Preservation Commission the same year.