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Bronx Seniors Welcome Low-Income Housing

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Wednesday for a $65 million housing development for low-income seniors in the Bronx that will be built on property owned by a local religious order.

Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation is leasing the property for 99 years from the Ursuline Bedford Park Community, and will develop an energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly senior complex.

“Our numbers are getting smaller as a religious community and we’re getting older and we need to look around for other means of keeping ourselves supplied with enough funds to do our work,” said Sister Dorothy Ann Kelly of the Ursuline Sisters.

The sisters, who have run since 1892 the Academy of Mount St. Ursula, a girls’ school, will receive about $8 million dollars from the use of the portion of their campus. Sister Superior Pascal Conforti said that the property was “under-utilized.”

“Part of this project — 70 of the units are in a new structure, and on the sides we will build two additional wings,” said FBHC Executive Director John Reilly. “So all together, it’s a big project with 240 apartments.”

FBHC says there are at least 300 senior citizens in the immediate neighborhood on waiting lists for senior housing, and are waiting for anywhere from five to 10 years.

“So I say to you today, thank you for your partnership and working with us to provide this miraculous development,” said Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan to the sisters.

“This is a gift to us really, because it’s adding beauty to our campus, and it’s saving our school and we’re serving our community,” said student Keona Campbell.

The first 83 apartments of the complex are to be completed in a year and a half. The second phase of the project, which will bring another 157 apartments, is scheduled to be finished by 2011.

SOURCE

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