The mixed-income, three-building complex includes 151 units of low-income rental housing and 71 moderate- and middle-income co-op units. Connected by a series of gardens that begin in the courtyard and spiral up through a series of green roofs with solar panels, the project features a 20-story tower at the north end of the site, six-to-12 story mid-rise buildings in the middle and three-to-four townhouses to south. Of the 151 rental units, 17 units are reserved for households earning 30% of the area median income, or what is equivalent to $23,040 for a family of four, 13 units are set a 40% of AMI $30,720 for a family of four), and 120 units are set at 60% of AMI ($46,080 for a family of four).

The project also includes energy saving features such as motion sensors in stairways and corridors and building-integrated photovoltaic panels to produce electricity from solar energy. In addition, individual apartments feature EnergyStar appliances, energy-efficient lighting, panoramic high-efficiency windows, natural cross ventilation, low VOC materials, super-sealed insulation and water-conserving fixtures. And in keeping with the building’s mission of healthy living, the property’s ground floor retail space is leased to Montefiore Medical Center, a 5,000-square-foot medical office equipped to deliver over 15,000 visits a year to approximately 6,000 patients.

The ceremony symbolized a new era for the neighborhood, which was once plagued with crime, blight, and abandonment in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 90s, the city adopted the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Area plan to help foster redevelopment efforts across 46 acres in the borough’s Community Board 1 and 3. Since construction began, 2,818 new residential units have been completed, and approximately 300,000 square feet of commercial space has been added – a dream for many that has now become a reality.

“Twenty years ago, it was inconceivable that the future of this neighborhood would look as bright as it does today,” said Mayor Bloomberg, at the event. “No one would have predicted that today there would one day be one of the most innovative, exciting, environmentally sustainable affordable housing developments in the nation – if not the world. The change that has swept through the South Bronx in the last decade challenges the very notions of what is and isn’t possible in urban revival. And investment in high-quality affordable housing – made possible by partnerships like the one behind Via Verde – has been the catalyst.”