Celebrating Harlem: Unique New Markets Project to Offer Housing, Educational, Cultural Opportunities

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In the West Harlem section of New York City, the federal new markets tax credit is helping to finance the development of an $80 million mixed-use project that will contain affordable rental and supportive housing units, an early childhood center, and a unique children’s museum that celebrates the neighborhood’s history, bringing new housing and educational opportunities to a distressed community.

The new development, called Sugar Hill, is sponsored by Broadway Housing Communities, a nonprofit housing developer of permanent supportive housing for low-income and homeless individuals and families in Harlem.

Housing, Other Functions

The project, expected to be completed in late 2013 or early 2014, will contain 124 affordable studio to three-bedroom apartments, of which 25 units will be designated as supportive housing units for formerly homeless individuals or families. Of the 124 units, 30% will be rented to households making 30% or less of the area median income (AMI), 40% rented to households at 50% or less of AMI, 10% rented to households at 51% to 60% of AMI, and 20% rented to households making no more than 80% of AMI.

An early childhood education center in the same 13-story building, associated with the Head Start program, will serve 100 to 120 local preschool-aged children. The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling will serve children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as well as other visitors.

According to Broadway Housing Communities, the children’s museum will be a new cultural institution celebrating the rich heritage of the historic neighborhood and engage visitors in activities related to art and storytelling. It will house galleries to display artwork generated in or inspired by Harlem, both by renowned artists and by the children. There will also be spaces for art making, performances, and workshops; a museum shop; a café; nonprofit office space; underground parking; and other features.

Rich Cultural Past

The development site is on the northern edge of West Harlem’s Sugar Hill historic district, which has a rich cultural and African-American history. Sugar Hill was named in the 1920s as an epicenter of the Harlem Renaissance when African American intellectual and social prominence and wealth flourished. Sugar Hill residents included musicians Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Paul Robeson; NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois; writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston; boxer Joe Louis; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; actress Lena Horne; and civil rights activists Roy Wilkins and Rev. Adam Clayton Powell. The Sugar Hill area was named a municipal historic district in 2000.

The area, however, is characterized by a high poverty rate, overcrowded housing, rising housing costs, high unemployment, and low educational performance. The site stands at the crossroads of three distinct communities: Washington Heights, a stronghold of the region’s Dominican population; Central Harlem, primarily African American; and West Harlem, a mixed community of blacks, whites, and Hispanics.
At the project’s groundbreaking ceremony in July, Ellen Baxter, Founder and Executive Director of Broadway Housing Communities, said, “Sugar Hill is the culmination of Broadway Housing Communities’ 30-year commitment to create opportunities to strengthen individuals, children, and families and communities with access to affordable housing, early childhood education, and cultural opportunities – three integral components of a sustainable and vibrant community.”

Multiple Funding Sources

A large number and wide variety of private, public, and philanthropic funding sources are being utilized for the project. These include federal new markets tax credits, federal low-income housing tax credits, federal HOME program dollars provided by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development, funding from the state’s Housing and Homeless Assistance Program, multiple grants, and other sources.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing provided an $11 million new markets tax credit allocation for the project – one of three developments supported by NMTC allocations from CSH. All three contain some supportive housing units.