Lisa Morrill, holding her Chihuahua, Chico, greets a visitor to her home in Wildberry Apartments, on Archambault Avenue in West Warwick. The 47-unit building, which features affordable rents for elderly tenants, opened in June.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WEST WARWICK — Linda Priestley hadn’t been at home for a long time.

After the death of her husband, she had spent several months in a North Providence nursing home.

All the while, she yearned for a space of her own — where people wouldn’t tell her what to do and when to do it.

She wanted her freedom back.

Priestley found it at Wildberry Apartments, a recently built 47-unit apartment complex for the elderly in Arctic.

“I love the apartment,” she said. “I feel comfortable in it.”

And she’s not alone. The apartments were snapped up by soon-to-be residents as soon as they were opened, in June. Last month, only four units were still empty, according to property manager Lisa Paulhus, and they were already spoken for.

“We want people to be happy,” Paulhus said. “These are safe apartments and we encourage a community atmosphere.” Two residents have approached Paulhus about starting a tenants association, and soon the building will host activities and other programs to bind the residents together, Paulhus said.

Wildberry Apartments were built by the nonprofit Women’s Development Corporation, which manages 700 housing units statewide using money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The organization’s properties include the Plaza Esperanza, in Crompton, a $4.6-million project which added 56 affordable-housing apartments to the town in 2000.

The corporation met steely stares from downtown merchants when the project was approved in 2006. The apartments, business owners said, would take away a valuable resource from downtown — the municipal parking lot.

That year, the town bought two houses abutting the municipal parking lot on Archambault Avenue, and sold the three properties to the Women’s Development Corporation for $625,000. The lot, which served downtown businesses such as the Registry of Motor Vehicles, local banks and restaurants, had about 56 spaces prior to the construction. The number of available spaces in the lot would be reduced to 32 once the complex opened, officials estimated.

However, prior studies showed that the lot normally contained no more than 35 cars at any given time. The developer agreed to resurface the remaining space, and the town worked to increase the amount of on-street parking available in downtown.

On a recent weekday, the parking lot outside of the apartment complex held few cars.

Parking woes wouldn’t be the complex’s only concern, however. Construction stopped at least twice at the order of then Building Official Stephen Murray. At the time, Murray said workers had filled a hole with crushed rock before inspectors could look for “unsuitable organic soils” in the area slated for footings. Inspectors took random soil samples from the site and found dark black soil, which indicates the presence of organic material.

Work resumed a day later, after Murray saw the improper soil removed from the site.

An earlier work stoppage, last November, was due to a misunderstanding that was quickly resolved.

Resident Lieselotte Morrill has dubbed herself the unofficial gardener of the complex.

Flowers and shrubs grow outside of her first-floor apartment at Wildberry. Sometimes she throws bread out of the window to attract birds, she said.

“I like gardens and lawnwork,” she said. “If I see weeds getting too big, I just go out and pull it up.”

All of the residents are 62 or older, and pay as little as $20 and no more than $590 a month for rent. Because many of the tenants don’t have cars, the downtown location — which is walking distance to the soon-to-open new senior center, grocery stories and churches — was ideal.

Some nights, Morrill walks her chihuaha, Chico, up to the gazebo on Main Street, which isn’t too far away.

“I like that the location is closer into town,” she said. “Everything is close around it.”

Each floor has a washer and dryer, and the apartments are handicapped accessible, with large front doors and ample hand railings in the bathroom.

Chico’s yaps shot through the air inside Morrill’s apartment as a small lamp on a side table blinked on and off. The light lets Morrill, who has a hearing disability, know when someone rings the doorbell.

“He always goes crazy whenever someone’s at the door,” she said.

Morrill’s apartment is smaller than the house she once lived in, but she managed to transform it into a place of her own.

“For me,” she said, “it’s comfortable.”

Wildberry has an added security feature: a channel on residents’ televisions is linked to cameras at the building’s front door, so they know who is buzzing before they let them in.

It’s a simple thing, but for residents including Priestley, it’s those things that make the complex feel less like an apartment for the elderly.

“When my kids drop me off,” Priestley said, “I say, ‘I’m going home now.’”

tbuford@projo.com