Many community members showed up to celebrate the ribbon cutting at Little Crow Lofts. In front, Warsaw Mayor Joseph Thallemer and Kevin McDonell, vice president of development at Commonwealth Companies, cut the ribbon.

WARSAW — A historic building previously known for producing beloved breakfast products has a new identity as affordable housing. Little Crow Lofts celebrated the opening of its 42-unit building with a ribbon cutting yesterday, June 6.

Little Crow Foods, 201 S. Detroit St., Warsaw, was established in 1903, making products including CoCo Wheats and Miracle Maize. The company remained a staple in the Warsaw community until 2012. Kim and Denny Fuller gifted the property to the Kosciusko County Community Foundation on Dec. 10, 2012.

Many different organizations made this project possible, including the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority and the State Historic Preservation Office. These organizations provided funding and tax credits to make the transformation possible.

Little Crow Lofts was developed by Commonwealth Companies. The company focuses on developing innovative housing solutions for communities. Other Indiana project locations include Columbia City, Elkhart and Muncie.

Suzie Light, executive director of Kosciusko County Community Foundation, spoke at the ribbon cutting.

“We are thankful that Kim and Denny Fuller chose to use our foundation to make a gift of this property. We are so thankful that Commonwealth identified this as a project that they were interested in,” said Light. “We are thankful that the Fullers’ charitable dream is being fulfilled because Commonwealth purchased the building. We are thankful for the vision that Commonwealth brought to our community for affordable housing and we hope that this wonderful project will serve as an example of how organizations can come together for the good of our community.”

Warsaw Mayor Joseph Thallemer expressed gratitude for the project.

“I will just start off by saying that mayors do not like seeing empty, abandoned buildings. Standing here is a complete 180 degrees from that,” said Thallemer. “Housing is a huge issue in this state, as you all know. What a great example of our state taking the need and actually doing something about it.”

“This is an asset for our community,” continued Thallemer. “This has been on the corner with the boxes up there, we all remember. This has been an iconic building, and for something to not end up as good as this did would have been a disappointment. What we’ve got now is we’ve created opportunity, we’ve created housing opportunities for our community.”

Currently, Little Crow Lofts is at 100 percent capacity. Along with 42 one and two bedroom units, the property also includes a community space that doubles as a business incubator space, a business center and an exercise room.

A Warsaw plate and renderings from the 1980s were found during the restoration of the building and presented at the ribbon cutting.