Mayor Bloomberg marks completion of LEED-certified Kalahari project

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently celebrated the completion of the Kalahari, a 249-unit mixed-income development on 116th St. in Harlem designed and built to the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Certification standards. The Kalahari offers 120 homes affordable to moderate- and middle-income households. The Kalahari was developed by Full Spectrum of NY and L&M Development Partners through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development's (HPD) Cornerstone program which builds multifamily, mixed-income housing on city-owned land. The mayor was joined by HPD commissioner Shaun Donovan, New York State Affordable Housing Corp. president and CEO Priscilla Almodovar, Goldman Sachs Group CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Housing Partnership Development Corp. president and CEO Dan Martin, Full Spectrum of NY principal Carlton Brown, L&M Development Partners principal Ron Moelis and JPMorgan Chase senior vice president Charles Gatewood. "The Kalahari shows that affordable housing can also be sustainable housing," said mayor Bloomberg.  "As we work to build housing for the million new people expected to come to New York by 2030, we need to ensure that we are building homes that people can afford and that allow the city to grow in an environmentally responsible way.  These new homes are part of our 165,000-unit affordable housing plan, the largest municipal affordable housing plan in the nation's history. Over 70,000 housing units have already been financed, keeping us on track to complete the plan on schedule." As part of PlaNYC, HPD is working with other agencies to create homes for almost a million more New Yorkers by 2030 while making housing more affordable and environmentally sustainable. The plan recommends that future housing developments be located less than half a mile from public transportation. The Kalahari includes green features such as a filtered air delivery system that purifies air quality at a constant rate, Energy Star appliances, green roofs, and landscaped courtyards. Half of the apartments in the Kalahari will be affordable to households earning middle and moderate-incomes. Using traditional African art work for inspiration, the Kalahari's architectural team, comprised of GF55 Partners, LLP and Frederic Schwarz Architects, incorporated colors, textures and patterns throughout the façade. A Harlem-based urban youth enrichment program, StreetSquash, will occupy ground-floor along 115th St., and ground-floor retail and a movie theater will occupy the space along 116th St. For the financing of the development, the New York State Affordable Housing Corp. funded a grant of about $2.7 million.  The Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group provided $8.2 million in mezzanine financing and JPMorgan Chase, with a bank group syndicate including Washington Mutual, Deutsche Bank, Capital One Bank, Carver Bank, and Commerce Bank, provided $95 million in construction financing. The development was built on city-owned property.