In most of America’s largest cities, post-war public housing towers have been torn down and replaced with more urban designs. New York City is the exception – whether because of the relatively good condition of our projects during the dark days of urban decline, or the militantly hostile attitude towards redevelopment held by tenant groups today.
To our north, though, the city of White Plains doesn’t have the same hang-ups. There, the White Plains Housing Authority is moving forward with redevelopment schemes for its aging public housing towers.
The Prelude, rendering by Dattner Architects
Among the city’s modernization projects is the Prelude, whose rendering YIMBY has stumbled upon. At the corner of South Lexington Avenue and Quarropas Street, just a few blocks from the White Plains stop on Metro-North’s Harlem Line, the Jonathan Rose Companies was selected to build a 10-story affordable housing development. Per the press release:
The Prelude […] includes 104 new affordable housing apartments, and a 13,500-square foot community center. It is the first phase in the redevelopment of Brookfield Commons (previously named Winbrook Campus), 450 public housing units build in 1949. The cost for this first phase will be $42.18 million. The future phases will replace all of the older, out-of-date towers with new, green mixed-income buildings, planned so that the current residents will never have to move off-site.
According to the Journal News, the community space will house “job-training programs and an employment center operated by the White Plains Youth Bureau.”
Groundbreaking occurred in April, and the new building is slated to be completed by next spring. Residents in the older brick buildings will then be moved into the new one, after which the old projects will be razed.
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