Greater Newark Housing Partnership Develops 2 Dozen Affordable Apartments in Newark, NJ

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Greater Newark Housing Partnership has teamed with Parkmont Housing and Redevelopment L.L.C., to develop 24 new affordable and supportive apartments in Newark, N.J.’s Fairmount Heights neighborhood, inside a long-abandoned South 10th Street building, which once served as a psychiatric hospital.

Located at 128-134 South 10th St., the blighted property has been vacant for more than 10 years and its renovation fits in well with the recently refurbished homes, 13^th Avenue growing garden, new street lamps and new playground for the neighborhood.

“Rehabilitation of this South 10th Street site is vital to the redevelopment and stabilization of the neighborhood,” John Abramo, Greater Newark Housing Partnership’s executive director, said in a company statement. “The property will act as a catalyst for additional redevelopment of buildings and houses, making the neighborhood increasingly attractive both as a residential and a retail commercial location within the City of Newark.”

Plans for the building include five apartments on the first through fourth floors, each with its own heating and air conditioning and a state of the art, highly energy efficient tank-less water heater. The renovated building will contain four studio apartments, nine one-bedroom units, and eight two-bedroom units.

The first-floor lobby will have secure entry doors and mailboxes for each tenant, and a ramp will provide disability access to the main doors of the building. The basement will feature a tenant laundry facility, an apartment for a live-in superintendent, an office for support services and a tenants’ activity room with a kitchenette and bathroom with access for the disabled. Plus, all windows and appliances will be Energy Star rated.

Abramo said that 15 of the units will provide housing for formerly homeless individuals and families with special needs. Support services for residents will be provided by Apostles’ House of Newark.

Additionally, two 1,500-square-foot family homes, with two affordable three-bedroom apartments each, will be built on a vacant lot on the site facing South 9th Street to be used to house larger families.

In 2009, the Urban League of Essex County obtained grants from the Wachovia Foundation and the State of New Jersey to help produce this revitalization plan for the Fairmount neighborhood, which targets an 80-square-block area with about 9,000 residents, one of Newark’s neediest communities.

The Fairmount South 10th Street Apartments project site is one aspect of the Abandoned Properties Initiative, sponsored by the City of Newark’s Department of Economic and Housing Development. According to Abramo, it will help increase economic opportunity for residents of the Fairmount Heights neighborhood.