New Affordable Senior Housing Comes to the Bronx
The building was designed to meet LEED Silver certification standards and all apartments are occupied.
New York—A ribbon cutting was recently held to announce the opening of Van Cortlandt Green, an affordable senior housing development located at 6469 Broadway in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. The project was developed by Selfhelp Community Services, Broadway Mosholu LLC and Urban Builders Collaborative LLC, along with Enterprise Community Partners. Dattner Architects designed the building, Lettire Construction Corp. built the project and Bronx Pro Management Group is serving as property manager.
Van Cortlandt Green
The 11-story building comprises 85 studio apartments, eight of which are subsidized through a 15-year project based Section 8 contract. The development features accessible kitchens and bathrooms, a rooftop community room, adjoining terrace, laundry facilities, onsite parking and 4,000 square feet of community facility space, which is leased to a social adult day care center scheduled to open in spring 2017. Selfhelp is providing a range of services to the residents including social services intake, physical activity and wellness programs, volunteer opportunities, social events and connections to community-based resources that offer meals, home care and case management.
“We’re proud to be part of such a transformative project, working with our co-development partners and design professionals to turn a challenging site, with a formidable rock wall, typical of the Northwest Bronx, into an attractive and sustainable building that will help seniors live longer and healthier lives,” said Nick Lettire, president & CEO of Lettire Construction Corp., which operates Urban Builders Collaborative LLC.
The development cost for the project came to $26.3 million. Van Cortlandt Green was given $13.2 million in mortgage financing from New York State Homes and Community Renewal in the form of short- and long-term tax exempt bonds through the state’s Housing Finance Agency, who also provided $8.9 million in subordinated mortgage subsidy funding. Enterprise’s subsidiary Enterprise Community Investment provided a predevelopment loan and syndicated $11.4 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Equity and New York State Brownfield Tax Credits. Other financing included a $500,000 mortgage allocated as a Member Item from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., a $50,000 C0-Generator Readiness Grant from JPMorgan Chase and $49,000 in incentives from New York State Energy Research and Development Authority for green building elements.
The building was designed to meet LEED Silver certification standards and all apartments are fully occupied.
“Creating affordable housing units for our senior citizens is very important to me and to our community,” said Diaz. “It is with a great pleasure that I support the development of Van Cortlandt Green senior housing in the Bronx, a development that focuses on not only high quality housing for our seniors that are able to look after themselves in independent living facilities, but is also an eco-friendly facility that addresses our housing crunch in a manner that is sound for the environment. I am proud to have provided capital funding for construction of this worthy project.”
Image courtesy of Selfhelp Community Services
