Staten Island, NY – A new 360-unit affordable housing building is underway in Staten Island. New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) announced the proposal to transform the former U.S. Navy Homeport in the Stapleton neighborhood into the new building. The building will be built on the North Shore’s waterfront.
The HPD could not officially say when the building, also known as the Front Street Project, will be finished for construction but that the units will be reserved for low income families with 54 being reserved for formerly homeless families. “Building affordable housing on the North Shore has been one of my top priorities during my three terms on the City Council,” HPD Commissioner Louise Carroll told SILive.com.
Along with the units the building will offer many amenities to its residents including: an ArchCare-operated health and social program for seniors, a space for a medical center, as well as a YMCA counseling center. A plot adjacent to the building is planned to be used for a school. This plan is a big step forward in helping low income families, especially in a neighborhood that was recently going through gentrification. Being the first neighborhood off the Staten Island ferry, many construction projects have taken place to “spruce up” the area such as an outlet mall, new apartment complex and restaurant center.
According to SILive.com, the building’s waterfront access, “include the placement of building entrances that decrease the need for deployable flood barriers, area landscaping that directs water away from the building, and building walls that the designers hope direct pedestrians to the waterfront.”
Construction hasn’t officially taken place yet, but the Brooklyn-based Monadnock Construction, the Sisters of Charity Housing Development Corporation, and The Master Group will be getting assistance from Bernheimer Architects and Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners on the design for the development.
