Ald. Devon Reid (8th) Monday night will ask the City Council to spend $950,000 to purchase a Howard Street laundromat as a potential site for a new affordable housing development.

The $950,000 price sought by the laundry’s owners is $200,000 more than what the property was recently appraised for, but that appraisal didn’t include the value of the laundry equipment.

Economic Development Manager Paul Zalmezak, in a memo to the council, said “there likely is a market” for the used laundromat equipment from the building at 739 Howard St., but provided no details.

Last September, Reid proposed that the city purchase the building at 741 Howard, just west of the laundromat, which had been severely damaged by a fire in July, as a potential affordable housing site.

Evanston Now called Zalmezak Monday morning seeking to learn whether that plan is moving forward, but did not get an immediate response.

The city already owns vacant storefronts at 727-729 Howard, just east of the laundromat, which Reid has suggested including in the housing development project. He has suggested redevelopment could be undertaken in cooperation with the Housing Authority of Cook County.

Zalmezak says acquisition of the laundromat could be paid for with funds from the Howard Ridge tax increment financing district. The memo to the council does not indicate how redevelopment of the site would be financed.

The city is currently collaborating with HACC on plans to redevelop a city parking lot on South Boulevard at Hinman Avenue in the 3rd Ward as an affordable housing development.

In another request, the City Council Monday night will be asked by Ald. Bobby Burns (5th) to spend $214,500 to demolish several properties on now city-owned land near the corner of Emerson Street and Jackson Avenue.

The Council agreed to buy the properties last summer for $1.675 million after neighbors scared off market-rate development proposals for the site.

Burns has said he hopes to have a mixed-income affordable housing project eventually rise on the property.