TRENTON, NJ−A $61.2 million affordable apartment community opened here Friday with fanfare, winning much praise for its design and for coming to fruition – alongside some scathing criticism of the decrepitude of neighboring apartment buildings from Trenton's own acting mayor.
The 204-unit Rush Crossings is the biggest residential development to occur in Trenton in more than a decade. Pennrose Properties got behind it in 2010, announcing it would build on the former site of the Miller Homes housing project.
The state Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency backed the project with $31.7 million in grants and through the sale of tax credits that generated $21.6 million in private equity. Both the developers and HMFA officials expressed their pride at a ribbon-cutting Friday, or in published statements.
David Walsh of JP Morgan Chase's community development arm, which helped complete financing for the project, said, “When we were driving here we got lost coming to the property - and by getting lost, we got a different view of the City of Trenton - what good is happening and what's not happening in the city. This development by Pennrose has helped to transform this area of the city and if it helps transform the area, that is where (the bank) wants to be.”
A 'plague'
But the acting mayor, George Muschal, bluntly told a reporter from The Trentonian that he does not think there currently is a high enough level of police protection to guarantee safety of residents of the shiny new complex. Furthermore, he called the seedy apartment buildings in the immediate vicinity a “plague” and “cancer.”
“You don't have to look too far, maybe 200 feet across the street and you look at the plague,” he was quoted as saying. “You don't want to have a complex as nice as this is built for the people and look over there and see cancer,” the mayor went on.
The HMFA 's executive director Anthony L. Marchetta kept the emphasis on the positive in his statement. Rush Crossings generated 580 full-time construction jobs during the several years it was under way, he noted. As a requirement attached to a $17.7 million tax credit awarded to Pennrose in 2012, the company hired low-income Trenton residents as 30% of its construction workforce.
Herb Brown, the Trenton Housing Authority's executive director, said the project never would have gotten off the ground without a $22 million HUD Hope VI revitalization grant and a $3.5 million grant from the City of Trenton.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
