The North Park Apartments, a 123-unit Section 8 affordable housing complex on the Upper West Side, will remain affordable for at least the next 30 years thanks to a $36 million financing award from the city for the Related Companies to use towards renovations.
According to Crain’s, Related last gut-renovated the five-story complex at 20 West 102nd Street in 1983, when it was converted into an affordable housing project. Now fully occupied, the building will get new bathrooms, fixtures and floors, as well as improvements to the mechanical systems.
Proceeds raised from the $27.8 million in tax-exempt bonds and $8.1 million in recycled tax-exempt bonds will translate into roughly $55,000 worth of upgrades per unit, according to the city’s Housing Development Corp.
“This is an important deal, this project could have left the system and gone market-rate,” said Marc Jahr, president of the HDC. “We are preserving affordable housing in an area that has long since been gentrified.”
Meanwhile, Related also broke ground today on the first phase of its new eco-friendly and publicly-subsidized affordable housing complex in Brooklyn’s Spring Creek, alongside the Hudson Companies, CAMBA Housing Ventures and city officials. The complex, Gateway Elton Street I, will have 197 housing units and 15,600 square feet of commercial and community space, and is gunning for LEED Silver certification. Ultimately, the Spring Creek project will have 659 affordable rental apartments. [Crain’s]