By Seth Daniel
The Castle Square Tenants Organization (CSTO) announced on Tuesday night during the National Night Out celebration that they have changed their logo and would begin purchasing properties in other parts of the city to develop affordable housing.
Executive Director Deborah Backus and CSTO President Ann Moy unveiled the new logo for the organization – which features a blue pallet of colors using four triangular building-pieces to make a square. In doing that, they also announced a new direction.
“Now that we have moved into a majority ownership of our property, we’re looking to amend our bylaws in a way that would allow us to purchase properties in other neighborhoods and renovate them into affordable housing for other residents of the city,” she said.
CSTO has long been a bastion of affordable housing in what has become a very desirable address on the corner of Tremont and East Berkeley streets. For a long time, they partnered with the Winn Company as co-owners of the property. In 2011, the renegotiated the deal so that CSTO became the majority owner and Winn became the minority owner. In 2012, they embarked on a multi-million refurbishment of the property that is now fully completed.
Backus did not identify any areas of the city they hoped to concentrate on, but said they plan to work on their organizational mission first. Once that is complete, they will move into that new direction of developing affordable housing.
The rebranding of the organization also spread to one of its most popular youth programs, Square Tech. The computer programming, coding and repair classes also unveiled a new logo Tuesday night.