Affordable Senior Housing Community Opens in the Bronx

Casa Celina features 204 units designated for low-income seniors and formerly homeless individuals.

The private-public partnership between Xenolith Partners LLC, The Kretchmer Cos., ELH Mgmt. and the Jewish Association Serving the Aging—alongside NYC Aging, HPD, HDC and NYCHA—have officially opened Casa Celina, a 204-unit fully affordable senior housing community in New York City’s Bronx borough.

Casa Celina
Casa Celina features a design that addresses all the accessibility issues that older New Yorkers have. Image courtesy of JASA

Casa Celina—named after Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s mother, Celina Baez—comprises 62 units designated for formerly homeless individuals, while 142 units are reserved for low-income seniors earning 50 percent or less of the area median income. One apartment is designated for a live-in superintendent.

Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC designed Casa Celina as an all-electric affordable housing residence. The building features Cold Climate Heat Pumps for heating and cooling and heat pump water heaters for electrically sourced domestic hot water. Mountco Construction and Development served as the project’s general contractor. JASA will manage the community and provide on-site supportive services such as health and wellness programming.


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The 16-story building incorporates 158 studios and 46 one-bedroom units. The 1,725-square-foot community space includes a fitness center, a rooftop terrace, lounge spaces and a laundry room. The ground-floor community space will house the JASA East Bronx Case Management Program.

The financing for the $113 million project includes $43 million in HDC bonds, approximately $53 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity and a $7 million subsidy from HDC’s Extremely Low & Low-Income Affordability and HPD’s Senior Affordable Rental Apartments programs.

Beneficial reuse of Bronx’s underutilized sites

The developers broke ground on the project back in October 2019, building on underutilized NYCHA land. The partnership was awarded the site located on the Sotomayor Houses campus through NYCHA’s NextGeneration Seniors First RFP. The beneficial reuse of the underutilized parking lot also brings income to Sotomayor Houses through a 99-year ground lease. 

Located at 1001 Thieriot Ave., Casa Celina is within the Soundview neighborhood. The development is conveniently located near shopping centers and public transportation. The community is also close to the intersection of interstates 95 and 278, which allows easy access across the New York City metropolitan area.