Home Street Partners Opens Bronx Community

The property includes 63 apartments primarily serving low-income seniors.

Home Street Residences. Image courtesy of Body Lawson Associates

Home Street Residences, a low-income housing community primarily serving seniors, has opened in the Bronx. Located at 1017 Home St., on Freeman Square in the Foxhurst section of the Bronx, the seven-story Home Street Residences features 63 apartments. Units average 550 square feet in size. The 75,000-square-foot building also includes community space for a teen support and video gaming center.

Developed by Home Street Partners, LLC, the building is allocating 30 percent of units to formerly homeless seniors. The remainder of apartments will be set aside for a diverse cross-section of low-income seniors and families. The manager-operator is Bronx Pro Group, with the non-profit DreamYard providing the community space programming.

In designing the structure, Body Lawson Associates Architects and Planners emphasized economical construction featuring panelized steel-stud framing, recessed windows and extra insulation to reduce heating and cooling costs and seek LEED Gold certification.

Twin design challenges

There were initially two intertwined major challenges,” Victor Body-Lawson, AIA, told Multi-Housing News. “First, the geological formation of the site meant excavating, which would be difficult and expensive. This lateral challenge posed problems with parking and utility rooms that would have been placed in the cellar.

“Secondly, the project was initially designed to be a market-rate development that would have required parking. The solution was to change the project from market-rate to affordable, which circumvented the need for underground parking. Utility rooms were also placed on the ground floor, which presented another challenge as New York City agency design guidelines recommend ground floors (be) made as transparent as possible. Since the mechanical rooms required no windows, what we did instead  . . . was treat the building’s base as if it were an artistic composition. We used contrasting colored precast stone panels to design the base of the building to give it a dissolving effect, or lighten the base, so it wouldn’t look heavy.”

The apartment building’s grey-brick cladding reflects the look of the early 20th Century-era Presbyterian church that formerly stood on the site. The church’s cartouche from 1909 is embedded in the foundation of the structure. Site-salvaged wood furnishings have been added to Home Street Residences’ living units and customized common areas. The building’s leading amenity is a roof patio with views of Manhattan and the Bronx.

Last month, a joint venture completed the redevelopment of a 138-unit affordable senior housing community in the Bronx.