Ribbon-Cutting for The Station at Grant Avenue Affordable Housing Development

New housing opportunities for New Jersey’s working families in Plainfield, NJ

PLAINFIELD – New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (NJHMFA) Executive Director Melanie R. Walter today joined Plainfield Mayor Adrian O. Mapp, City Council President Steve Hockaday, Economic Development & Policy Director Valerie Jackson, South Second Street Redevelopment, LLC, funding partners and community members for the ribbon-cutting for The Station at Grant Avenue, a new 90-unit, 100% affordable housing development in the City of Plainfield, NJ, financed in part by NJHMFA.

The Station at Grant Avenue is providing high-quality housing for families and individuals who have household incomes between 30% and 60% of the area median income (AMI). This income range translates to $22,260 to $44,520 per year for a single person and between $31,800 and $63,600 for a family of four, which is in line with many New Jersey essential workers, such as EMTs, daycare workers, supermarket staff, home health aides, and teachers.

“The Station at Grant Avenue offers much-needed affordable housing opportunities for New Jersey’s working families,” said Lt. Governor Oliver, who serves as DCA Commissioner and NJHMFA board chair. “A development such as this increases economic vitality in the neighborhood, which will help strengthen surrounding homes and the community.”

As the city’s first major redevelopment in decades, The Station at Grant Avenue transformed a vacant, blighted lot into new apartments homes affordable to working families, with rents for one-bedroom apartments ranging from $413 to $906; $484 to $1,074 for two-bedroom apartments, and $546 to $1,228 for three-bedroom apartments.  The Station at Grant Avenue, located at 738-758 South Second Street in the City of Plainfield is in one of most densely populated sections of the city and where the lowest access to quality housing has been available. The Station at Grant Avenue is establishing a market for further redevelopment.

“Creating new affordable housing opportunities in a neighborhood helps to keep the community vibrant and spur new economic growth,” said Melanie R. Walter, Executive Director, New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

NJHMFA’s 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credit award generated $8.4 million in private equity for the project. This, coupled with $15.4 million in permanent and construction financing through the agency and $15.3 million in federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery assistance financing through the Fund for Restoration of Multifamily Housing (FRM) made the project possible. The FRM program, created following Superstorm Sandy, provides for-profit and nonprofit housing developers an opportunity to secure zero-interest and low-interest financing to develop affordable housing in the nine counties most impacted by the storm, including Plainfield. During the first 90 days of lease up in any project that has received FRM funding, applications submitted by individuals who were displaced by or experienced major storm damage from Sandy will be given priority review.

South Second Street Redevelopment, LLC is a partnership between J.G. Petrucci Company and TD+Partners. J.G. Petrucci has over thirty years of development experience in turnkey and residential design/build projects and manages a portfolio of approximately 3.5 million square feet of space and several hundred acres in three states. TD+Partners is a real estate development firm with over ten years of real estate development experience and participation in over 500,000 square feet of mixed-use development primarily in urban areas.

NEW JERSEY HOUSING AND MORTGAGE FINANCE AGENCY (NJHMFA)

NJHMFA, an affiliate of DCA, is a statewide and national leader in providing and advocating for affordable housing and homeownership. The Agency provides financing to developers to create quality homes and provides mortgage loans and down payment and closing cost assistance to help homebuyers achieve their dream of homeownership. For more information about NJHMFA programs, visit njhousing.gov.