Marathon Development and Evergreen Partners develop the 135-unit Village Green Apartments: A $30m project

For over 35 years the Henry Hudson Townhouses located on 35 Hudson Ave. had served the community, providing affordable housing to residents in need. But the development could not keep up with the times and was left with one redeeming feature - its prime location on 10 acres in the center of the downtown area. The apartment buildings were constructed in 1973 and were substandard from the beginning. The buildings had little insulation and inefficient electric heat. Decades of neglect left the buildings beyond repair. To compound matters, the poor site layout facilitated various criminal activities. Over the years there were several approaches to fixing the problems at the townhouses, but none were acceptable to the city. In stepped Marathon Development Group, Ltd. and Evergreen Partners, LLC with a plan that would preserve the community as affordable rental housing, yet facilitate the complete redevelopment of the site. The redeveloped property, to be renamed Village Green Apartments, will consist of 135 apartment units with one mid-rise building and twenty two-story buildings. The mid-rise elevator building will contain a mix of one and two-bedroom apartments, with many units reserved for elderly residents. The two-story buildings will feature duplex and stacked flat apartments. The apartments will range in size from approximately 640 s/f one-bedroom apartments, to 1,400 s/f four-bedroom apartments. Foit-Albert Associates, a local WBE firm designed the buildings to comply with the DHCR Green Building initiative. LECESSE Construction is the builder. The project cost of the Village Green Apartments is $30 million. "This comprehensive redevelopment was made possible with the support from the state Housing Finance Agency, the Division of Housing and Community Renewal and mayor LeRoy Akins as well as the continued participation of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development," said Mark Soja, president of Marathon Development Group. Village Green Apartments will continue to benefit from a project-based section 8 contract and will be rented to households with incomes at or below 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI) for the Warren County region - currently $53,700 for a family of four. The project is being financed by the HFA's Taxable Mortgage Initiative (TMI), in which HFA originates the mortgage and then assigns it to a private lender at the closing. The lender for Village Green Apartments is JP Morgan Chase. DHCR provided a subsidy loan through the HOME program and more than $19 million was raised by syndicating Low Income Housing Tax Credits with First Sterling Financial. The city will gain a new vibrant residential community in its down town core area while the residents of Village Green Apartments will continue to live in the neighborhood they love and benefit from a community they are proud to call home.