Housing Revival in Yonkers
The ceremonial opening of an affordable housing complex at a busy
Yonkers intersection and a financial incentive package recently approved
for private developers of another neighborhood housing complex mark
progress this summer in the five-year-old, $180 million project to
revitalize the city’s blighted Ashburton Avenue corridor for businesses
and residents.
At the corner of Ashburton and Nepperhan avenues, the recently
completed, $24.8 million Father Pat Carroll Green development includes
62 two-family homes. Each unit contains a three-bedroom, two-bath,
owner-occupied home and a two-bedroom apartment whose rental will assist
homeowners with their mortgage payments.
Yonkers and Westchester County officials joined in a ribbon-cutting
ceremony there July 22 with Robert M. Pascucci, president of the project
developer, Yonkers Green Realty L.L.C., and Jobco Inc., the Great Neck,
Long Island-based construction and development company that partnered
with public and nonprofit community housing and development agencies on
the 4-acre development. The long-awaited project was started by the late
Rev. Patrick Carroll, former president of St. Joseph Community Housing
Corp., and the late James McFadden, founder of the Association for
Middle Income Housing.
The project was financed with $2.38 million from the county’s housing
implementation fund, $3.2 million in federal HOME funds and the
remainder from construction loans and contributions and fees from the
developer.
The purchase price for a two-family home there is $258,000. Eligible
buyers must have a household income at or below 65 percent of the
county’s area median income, currently $68,445 for a family of four.
Apartments will be rented to families earning 50 percent or less of the
area median income, currently $52,650 for a family of four.
A few blocks away off Ashburton Avenue, demolition continues this summer
on the vacated 552-unit Mulford Gardens public housing project. The
12-acre site, one of the oldest affordable housing projects, will be
cleared to make way for Grant Park Apartments, a planned mixed-income
neighborhood of 240 rental townhouse units and garden apartments.
Private developers in the $109.1 million project are The Richman
Group Development Corp., of Greenwich, Conn., and Landex Corp., of
Linthicum, Md.
The development partners late last year opened the first structure in
the Ashburton Avenue revival, the 60-unit, $23 million Croton Heights
Apartments, on former Yonkers Parking Authority property at 193
Ashburton Ave.
The Yonkers Industrial development Agency (IDA) this month approved an
economic development package for the first phase of construction at
Grant Park Apartments, which will include 100 housing units at a cost of
$47 million. The IDA approved $2.36 million in sales and use tax
exemptions for construction materials and equipment and a $360,000
mortgage tax exemption.
IDA officials said the first phase at Grant Park Apartments is expected
to be completed in late 2010. Kristin Miller, president of Richman Group
Development, could not be reached for comment on the developer’s
construction schedule and other project details.
Yonkers Mayor Philip A. Amicone, chairman of the city IDA, in a
statement called the agency’s action “another milestone in our efforts
to transform and expand affordable housing for working families. For
years, everyone acknowledged that Mulford Gardens represented all that
is bad about affordable housing. Today with the launch of Grant Park
Apartments, together with the earlier opening of Croton Heights, we are
moving forward with the kind quality housing that our residents
deserve.” He called the financial package “a prudent and wise investment
in the future of our city.”
The Ashburton Avenue revitalization was launched by the city in 2004
with a $20 million grant through the federal Department of Housing and
Urban Development’s Hope VI program, which seeks to replace severely
distressed public housing projects occupied exclusively by poor families
with redesigned mixed-income housing
|
