Housing agency awarded $1M grant

Real Estate Weekly, Oct 31, 2001

New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development commissioner Jerilyn Perine announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded the city's housing agency with a: $1 million Economic Development Initiative grant to leverage $9 million in Section 108 loans. The funds will be used to continue commercial and retail development along W. 116th. St., which will create 110 permanent jobs.

HPD plans t use its grant to comp etc the third and final phase of its ANCHOR development along W. 116th St., between Fifth Ave. and Malcolm X. Boulevard in Manhattan's Harlem community by developing 222 units of new ho using and 50,000 SF of commercial retail. Construction is. scheduled to begin in late 2002/early 2003.

"Homeownership is critical to revitalizing the Harlem community," said Perine. "'This grant will allow us to continue creating homeownership and business opportunities in Harlem."

The ANCHOR program, which stands for Alliance for Neighborhood. Commerce, Home Ownership and Revitalization, has transformed the area around W. 116th St.

The most visible sign of that transformation is Renaissance Plaza, a newly-constructed, 11-story cooperative at the corner of W. 116th St. and Malcolm X Boulevard. The building features 240 cooperative apartments, a unit far the superintendent, and 62,000 SF of ground-level retail for a Met Foods grocery store, an Ashley Stewart women's apparel shop, a Petland discount store, a branch of Carver Federal Savings Bank, a Rite Aid drug store, and tutoring space for the Rheedlen Family Center.