The city is looking to cash in on the tight residential market by unloading 50 abandoned buildings and vacant lots in Harlem to 21 different developers. Since the city's inventory of such property was more than 600 in 1994, the city has become number one for job growth in the nation, with more people looking for housing and finding little that even middle-income families could afford. Now, the city is going to reduce the inventory to only 45, as a variety of housing units will rise.
Senior housing will be constructed on East 131st Street; 63 apartments will go up on West 144th Street. Seven vacant buildings will be redeveloped on West 148th Street from Frederick Douglass Boulevard to Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. Ten three-family town houses on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 120th and 121st Streets are planned and 75 co-ops will be constructed in the area. On First Avenue between East 100th and 101st Streets 100 rental and 48 condo units will go up.
The group of developers, such as the Bluestone Organization, Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement and Columbia University with Artemis Construction, all of which were screened by the Department of Housing Preservation, will create a total of 1,643 new housing units. Of these, 990 will be for sale. The units will range from lower- to higher-income housing and potential residents will be selected by lottery.
Over the Christmas weekend, HUD Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo announced during speaking engagements on Long Island and in Westchester County that the state is set to receive $126.2 million of the $1 billion in grants announced by President Clinton for agencies that help the homeless. Of the state's cut, the city will get almost $85 million. Local organizations will receive the money to aid in providing temporary and permanent housing, as well as other services.
These funds will aid in the fight against homelessness in the city, but middle-income residents continue to be the least addressed renters. Developments such as the planned Impala, only one of five new condos planned for the East Side in 2000, has units priced from $400,000 to $3.9 million. In other urban areas, such as Philadelphia, a buyer could obtain about 15 townhouses for the same price as one of the most expensive condos at the Impala. Many residents here contend the market has "gentrified" neighborhoods, driving out the working class families who have lived there for decades.
The brutal climate for the middle class here has left many with little after rent is paid or long commutes from cheaper neighborhoods out-of-state. This may change though, according to many experts GlobeSt.com spoke with in developing this story. They contend that a slow-down will put out the fire on pricing. While all say time will tell, bear markets, they say, are buyers' markets.
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