The Riverside community celebrated the completion of 74 mixed-income apartments Tuesday, which brings updated public housing as well as units designated for people with disabilities and special needs as part of a $100 million redevelopment project in the Wilmington neighborhood.
Over 100 state, federal and local elected officials, community leaders and neighbors gathered outside the first phase of Imani Village, where units have been set aside to house seniors, veterans and individuals with disabilities along with transitioning families out of outdated Wilmington Housing Authority apartments into newly constructed one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartment homes.
This is the first of six phases of a “Purpose Built Community” redevelopment plan spearheaded by the nonprofit Reach Riverside. It will offer 59 affordable units as well as 15 market-rate apartments. The second phase, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, will add another 50 affordable and 17 market-rate units, said Jennifer Lienhard, Reach Riverside’s director of marketing and communications.
Over a dozen Riverside families have, or are in the process of, moving into the units, Lienhard said.
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Announced in 2018, the multimillion-dollar project aims to build hundreds of public housing units as well as mixed-income and homeownership opportunities, revamp early education and health services at Kingswood Community Center and add high school grades to the local EastSide Charter School, with the goal to graduate 100% of its seniors.
The Riverside community was one of more than 25 in the country selected to receive free consulting on alleviating concentrated poverty through improvements to housing, early childhood-through-high school education and health.
Much of the housing featured at a news conference Tuesday morning is already spoken for – Wilmington Housing Authority tenants have slowly moved into the new units as they became available – doing little to relieve the strain for affordable housing in Delaware and the First State’s largest city.
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“It’s not much of an advantage for people on the waitlist,” housing authority Executive Director Ray Fitzgerald said. “It’s more of an advantage for people who are currently living in housing. People on the waitlist can apply for the market-rate housing, but the first priority is to make sure all of these people can come here if they want.”
The units replace the decades-old, low-rise units that the Wilmington Housing Authority owns across Bowers Street from the new housing in Riverside. The project, led by developer Pennrose, LLC, features a variety of two-bedroom units – from first-floor, ADA-compliant apartments to two and three-floor units.
Riverside resident Alison Mendez will move into a recently completed unit soon, having lived in the neighborhood for nearly six years.
“I love that you guys have been able to open up a safer community because when I first moved here there was a shooting right near my house and it scared me and my kids, but to this day it’s changed just because of what you guys are doing,” Mendez said.
The northeast Wilmington corridor has seen renewed focus to redevelop and strengthen the neighborhood.
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings lauded the project as the “antidote” to the historical redlining practices that have segregated communities like Wilmington and disenfranchised communities of color.
“Everyone deserves access to safe, affordable housing,” Jennings said. “It is a basic human right, but all too often in our state and in our country, it has been denied to people. We know that with housing, education and health care.”
Earlier this year, the Kingswood Community Center received $10 million in federal funds to help rebuild and expand the facility, which has been at the heart of Riverside’s redevelopment. Delaware also committed $26.4 million to the multiphase plan with some of the state’s federal pandemic relief funds.
Kingswood provides Wilmington residents and surrounding communities with programs that empower families and help people achieve economic, social and personal well-being. It serves as an early learning and after-care center for Riverside’s children as well as a community space for older adults.
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