LEWISTON — The elevator may not be Nancy Ottati’s favorite thing about her new apartment, but it’s one of them.

“There are so many things,” said Ottati, 74. “But the elevator, it’s very nice.”

Ottati was one of the first people to move into the city’s newest downtown housing development, Birch Hill Senior Housing, a 20-unit apartment complex on the southwestern corner of Birch and Bates streets.

She was on hand when Gov. John Baldacci, Mayor Larry Gilbert and bank and development officials cut the ribbon on the new building.

Ottati said a bad knee and shoulder made walking up a flight of stairs in her old Bates Street apartment quite a task. Though her new apartment is upstairs from the entrance, the elevator is there to take her up.

“But the elevator may be the least of it,” she said. “It’s well-built. It feels like home, like an actual home with solid walls and good doors. And it’s clean, and it’s safe.”

Ottati is one of eight residents who have moved into the building since mid-January. Another four have been approved to move in and eight more units are awaiting tenants, said Missy Hazeltine, senior property manager for Preservation Management Inc.

“We have units, but we think that once the word gets out, they’ll fill up pretty quickly,” Hazeltine said.

Her office set out a stack of applications for tenants. Minutes later, the applications were gone.

Demand for senior housing is very high, said Margaret Bean, deputy director of the Maine Housing Authority.

“We created a lot of elderly housing in the 1980s, but then we kind of got away from it,” Bean said. “But now that all of us Baby Boomers are getting older, there’s a new cry for elderly housing.”

Bean said the housing authority forecast a 77 percent increase in demand for affordable apartments geared to seniors through 2014 across the state. In Androscoggin County, they forecast the need for at least 240 additional apartments over the next four years.

The Birch Hill project includes 17 one-bedroom and three two-bedroom apartments. Five units will be fully handicapped-accessible. It will replace three vacant lots running along the southern side of Birch Street between Bates and Knox streets. The area was home to five apartment buildings that burned in 1993.

The $4.48 million project is being financed through low-income housing credits managed for MaineHousing by Northeast Bank and the Northern New England Housing Investment Fund. The two are providing $3.74 million in equity in exchange for the tax credits.

MaineHousing is providing another $400,000 in loans and the city has set aside $350,000 in HOME funds for additional loans. The city has also created a tax-increment financing district to help lower rents for the units.

The buildings are designed for people 55 and older with incomes below 60 percent of the area’s median income — $30,140 for a family of two, according to the U.S. Census bureau.

Single-bedroom units will rent for $435 and two-bedroom units for $550 per month, including heat and hot water.

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