Image courtesy of Fenway Community Development Corp.

A five-year-old Boston affordable housing preservation program helped a local nonprofit acquire and upgrade a 97-unit property in the South End and Lower Roxbury where income restrictions had been set to expire.

Fenway Community Development Corp. partnered with The Schochet Cos. of Braintree on the recently-completed renovations to the Newcastle Saranac apartments, located on Columbus Avenue and Northampton Street in the South End and Lower Roxbury neighborhood.

The property’s MassHousing Section 13A income restrictions had been set to expire in 2019.

Boston’s Acquisition Opportunity Program was launched in 2017 and enables affordable housing developers to prequalify for funding, enabling them to outbid private developers who might convert properties into market-rate housing. The program enabled the new owners to purchase the property in 2019.

Recently-completed upgrades included roof and window replacements, kitchen and bathroom upgrades and building system overhauls.

“The deep affordability of these apartment homes for nearly a hundred households, contrasted with the rents of market-rate housing in the area, made their preservation especially critical for maintaining the vibrancy and diversity of the neighborhood,” MassHousing Executive Director Chrystal Kornegay said at a ceremony last week to mark the completion of the project.

The financing package included participation by the Mayor’s Office of Housing, the Boston Planning & Development Agency’s inclusionary development program, the state Department of Housing and Community Development, MassDevelopment, MassHousing, Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp. and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.

Of the property’s 97 units, 82 are reserved for households earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income.