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Housing rises in Yonkers

On a hilly bulldozed site in Yonkers where a blighted and crime-ridden public housing complex once stood, public and private partners joined in mugging heat recently to mark the start of two affordable-housing projects in the city’s Ashburton Avenue neighborhood.

The ceremonial groundbreaking was for the second, $64.6 million phase of Croton Heights, a multiple-housing development project undertaken by the city in partnership with two private developers, The Richman Group Inc., based in Greenwich, Conn., and Landex Corp., the project’s co-developer and property management firm, based in Linthicum, Md. The project’s first-phase apartment building, the 60-unit Park Vista at Croton Heights, at the corner of Ashburton and Vineyard Avenue, opened in 2008.

Joined by bankers whose institutions are among the project’s several financial backers, Yonkers residents and heat-braving city, county and state officials, the developers shoveled dirt as new building foundations rose behind them on the site of the former Mulford Gardens, a 550-unit public housing complex built in 1939 and demolished last year. In its place, Grant Park at Croton Heights, a $45.5-million apartment community with 100 affordable-housing units in four buildings, is expected to open by summer 2011.

Under construction nearby is Park Terrace at Croton Heights, a $19.1-million, four-story, 49-unit apartment building at 110 Ashburton Ave. for residents 62 and older. That project will be completed in 14 months, said Richman Group President Kristin Miller.

The rising developments are part of the city’s Hope VI revitalization plan, a federally funded program to replace blighted public housing for low-income residents with redesigned mixed-income housing. Built in phases on a loose timetable pegged to available financing, the project when fully completed will produce about 350 affordable housing units.

The city launched the Hope VI project with a $20 million grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. “It’s all been spent,” said Joseph Shuldiner, executive director of the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority.

Using that original grant as leverage, Shuldiner and other city officials pursued financing from both private and public sources to continue the Croton Heights project. For infrastructure improvements, Westchester County kicked in $3.6 million at Grant Park and $1.65 million at Park Terrace from its housing implementation fund. The city of Yonkers has contributed about $20 million in cash and in-kind services, including $8.5 million for infrastructure.

The state’s Housing and Finance Agency and Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) have contributed more than $11 million for the two projects, said Shuldiner. DHCR, he said, has supplied the main financial impetus for the project’s private investors, tax credits for low-income housing.

From the private sector, Citi Community Capital provided a $7.3 million construction loan for Park Terrace. Bank of America Merrill Lynch provided a $22.5 million construction loan for Grant Park and more than $36.7 million overall for that project. Over the last three years, Bank of America has provided $100 million in debt or equity financing in Yonkers to create more than 300 units of affordable housing, said Todd Gomez, a Bank of America senior vice president for community development banking.

Community Preservation Corp., a nonprofit mortgage lender based in New York City, provided $4.73 million in financing for Park Terrace, said Sadie McKeown, senior vice president and regional director of CPC’s Hudson valley office. As a long-time lender in the city’s low-income housing market, “We’ve seen our role as one of the only lenders in Yonkers diminished” in recent years as other private lenders have stepped in, she said.
“This is punishing, complex work,” Michael A. Skrebutenas, DHCR executive deputy commissioner, said of city officials’ pursuit of public and private financing sources. “It’s extremely complex, difficult work in getting the financing for this together.”

The housing construction is part of Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone’s $180 million plan to revitalize the Ashburton Avenue corridor for both businesses and residents. Amicone at the groundbreaking said the Grant Park project also will spur improvements to properties on its perimeter.

“It’s like the rings when you drop a rock in the water,” said Amicone. “Everything around it will get better.”

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