Lettire Presses on With NYC Affordable Housing
Private housing developers like Lettire Construction are pressing forward with affordable housing projects in the city.
Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
Via Verde
New York–Earlier this week, as reported by MHN, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his bully pulpit to promote the New Housing Marketplace Plan, which would see the construction and preservation of some 165,000 affordable housing units over the next four years. The current economic malaise notwithstanding, the plan should proceed, the mayor said.
Private housing developers likewise are pressing forward with affordable housing projects in the city. Lettire Construction Corp. and its development arm, Urban Builders Collaborative (UBC), for example, completed or began 1,200 units of affordable (and special needs) housing in New York in 2009.
Tapestry
“The affordable housing sector has emerged as one of the most active areas of development in the greater New York region,” Nicholas Lettire, president of Lettire Construction Corp., tells MHN. “We’ll continue to work closely with government agencies, development partners, and neighborhood leaders and coalitions, to increase the supply of units in this sector. Lettire currently has eight projects in the works for 2010, and all are on budget and on schedule.”
Over the course of last year, Lettire closed on the Ciena and Hobbs Court, the first project under the Federal Tax Credit Assistant Program, a project that also happened to be championed by Mayor Bloomberg and New York Gov. David Paterson. Along with its development partner Phipps Houses, UBC and Lettire were selected by the New York City Housing Authority and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development to build the $140 million project to provide 376 units of low- and middle-income multifamily housing.
Hobbs Court
Also in 2009, Lettire completed the ground-up Honeywell II Apartments, a 39-unit, ground-up project in the Bronx offering 35 units of low-income housing. The company also completed a gut rehab and new construction of Fabria Houses, a two-building, 67-unit multifamily property in the East Village.
The company has been focusing on sustainable elements in its projects as well. Tapestry, a 185-unit property by Lettire in Manhattan, is LEED Gold; Fortune Society, a 114-unit transitional housing property, also in Manhattan, is likewise LEED Gold; and Via Verde, 227-unit residence in the Bronx has put in for LEED Platinum.
