"Feels Like Home" - New Wiggles Way Apartments Nearing Full Occupancy

Matt Lamb was close to giving up on Nantucket. Despite being born and raised on the island, raising a young family here, and having a steady job for nearly 20 years with the same company, the housing crisis was taking its toll.

“It had been years of doing the six or seven-month shuffle and never having year-round housing,” Lamb said. “I have two younger children in school out here, so that’s been super hard. I was at the point of looking at properties over on the Cape and commuting here. I was really trying to avoid that, and I had a bunch of leads that I thought were going to work, but they all fell apart for one reason or another.”

But the tide turned for Lamb earlier this year when he reached out to Housing Nantucket, the island-based non-profit organization, which was nearing the completion of the largest and most ambitious housing project in its 30-year history, a 22-unit apartment complex off Fairgrounds Road. When the first units in the new Wiggles Way workforce apartment complex opened up in early April, Lamb was among the first tenants to move in.

“It feels like home,” Lamb said. “It’s beautiful. I’ve been there about a month and I’m still at the point where I wake up every morning and think ‘this is my home’?”

The lights are now on, grass is starting to grow, and kids are playing in the field directly in front of the new development - all welcome sights for Housing Nantucket executive director Anne Kuszpa, who helped oversee the project over the past three-plus years.

“It’s joy,” Kuszpa said. “That’s the one word that comes to mind. Seeing people’s faces when they’re walking around, seeing the kids playing on the lawn, and playing soccer. This is a dream that has come to fruition after so many hours, conversations, and emotions that are all tied up into it. But at the end of the day, this is what makes it all worth it.”

With the Wiggles Way apartments expected to reach full occupancy by July 15th, we have gathered the final numbers on the development:

• 22 apartment units
• 38 bedrooms
• 8 buildings
• $21.747 million project cost ($18.147 million in construction, $3.6 million for land acquisition)
• $840 per square foot

Rental rates (which include sewer, water, electricity, and trash pickup:

• 1 bedroom: $2,194 - $2,700/month
• 2 bedrooms: $2,468 - $3,400/month
• 3 bedrooms: $2,741, $4,675/ month

Funding sources:

• $8.469 million loan from the town of Nantucket’s Affordable Housing Trust
• $9.855 million grant from the Affordable Housing Trust
• $600,000 in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)
• $2.923 million from Housing Nantucket donors

Solar installation:

• $775,000, covered by a $200,000 grant from Mass DEP, a $100,000 loan from the Nantucket Affordable Housing Trust, as well as grant funding from Remain and Housing Nantucket donors.

The Wiggles Way affordable housing development began in 2021 when the family of Fred "Wiggles" Coffin - who passed away in 2004 - decided to sell its two-acre property at 31 Fairgrounds Road to Housing Nantucket for $3.6 million. The non-profit was able to complete the acquisition with taxpayer funds from the town's Affordable Housing Trust, which were approved by Town Meeting voters in 2019 as part of the so-called "Neighborhood First" program.

Following the groundbreaking for the project in January 2022, the hope was that the apartments would be finished and ready for move-in by that fall. However, the completion date was pushed back several times and faced further delays after builder Billy Cassidy suffered health issues in 2024. Housing Nantucket twice requested additional cash infusions for the project, including $2.5 million in December 2024, and an earlier request for $2.5 million to cover overages in July 2023.

Those requests, which pushed the construction costs to $840 per square foot, led to criticism of the project among some in the community - critiques that Kuszpa and her team were aware of as they neared completion this spring.

“There were a lot of things no one could have foreseen, and that’s not uncommon on Nantucket,” Kuszpa said. “At the end of the day, sometimes it takes twice as long and is twice as expensive. People deal with this, and we dealt with it. We learned a lot and are eager to start another project now.”