Allan Appel Photo
The Strong School.
The plan to turn the vacant old Strong School at 69 Grand Ave. into 58 affordable, artist and LGBTQ-friendly apartments is moving ahead, if a little more slowly than anticipated.
That was the word from Karmen Cheung of the Philadelphia-based housing developer Pennrose LLC, which received final City Plan approval for the $25 million project about a year ago.
Thursday night she offered an update via Zoom at the regular monthly meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team at the Fair Haven Branch Library.
Click here, here, and here, for details about the project, which combines the gut rehab of the historic school on Grand and Perkins with the construction of a four-story attached complex of new buildings behind.
“Having already secured a Federal Home Loan Bank Affordable Housing Program grant,” she wrote in an email after the meeting, some “DECD [state Department of Economic and Community Development] Brownfield funding, and historic approvals [from the State Historic Preservation Office], we are now actively in conversation with the state and city about the remaining funding for the project and are targeting a February 2025 construction start.”
With a standard 18-month construction schedule, that would mean doors will open in mid to late 2026, a little later than previously targeted.
That concerned neighbor Paul Nadziejko, the president of River Place Condominium Association on Front Street. He asked Cheung about the longer timeline to obtain funding.
“The resources are competitive,” Cheung answered. “Market rate [developers] just go to the banks. We have the same construction costs, but charge less rent, and that’s why it requires extra steps for the financing. And also because it’s an historic building.”
“But is it all in place?” Nadziejko pressed.
“We hope to have it secured within months,” Cheung replied. “The historic approvals came in June and now we’re off to the races for funding.”
Were there any unusual toxic materials emerging in the work thus far? asked one of the neighbors.
No, Cheung responded. Just the usual asbestos to be expected in a building of this age and an appropriate contractor is to be brought in to deal with that.
Longtime Fair Haven community gardener Maryann Moran asked if Cheung could note that when the east side of the old school is worked on, that dust and debris from construction be prevented from falling on the gardeners and the beds of Grand Acres Garden. Moran manages that plot as part of her portfolio of the gardens of Gather New Haven; they lie immediately across Perkins Street from the construction site.
Cheung said she would let the construction crews know to put up an appropriate barrier.
As the meeting wound to conclusion, Nadziejko said he wasn’t entirely satisfied with Pennrose’s answer about the financials.
“It would be nice to know what’s in place” and what isn’t, he said, and in some detail.
“Because if they don’t have it,” he said, trailing off with an indication that the concern is the building, vacant now for ten years, will continue to be so.
Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller was at pains to reassure neighbors that the Strong School project, a critical one at the gateway to Fair Haven, is in good shape.
“The city staff and I meet regularly” with Cheung and Pennrose, she said. “They are great partners.”