Modular Housing for Low Income Seniors Close to Topping Out at Bushwick’s Hope Gardens

A 13-story modular building designed specifically for low-income and formerly homeless seniors is rising on a former parking lot in Bushwick’s Hope Gardens complex.

Linden Grove at 223 Linden Street will be a 154-unit complex once finished, composed of studio and one-bedroom apartments. According to developer Gilbane Development Company, there will be 47 apartments set aside for formerly homeless seniors, 48 for those earning up to 30 percent of the Area Median Income (currently $29,670 for one person), and 59 for those earning up to 40 percent AMI (currently $39,560). There will also be one unit reserved for a superintendent.

Those income levels could rise if New York’s median income increases before the development is finished.

Linden Grove will include an indoor fitness center and outdoor fitness area; laundry room; recreation area; raised garden beds and community gardens; a rooftop sitting area; and solar panels, according to the development’s website.

When Brownstoner stopped by on Monday, the development stood 12 stories tall with identical-looking modules stacked atop each other, windows already installed. The new building permit was issued by Department of Buildings in 2022.

Gilbane is developing Linden Grove in partnership with Blue Sea Development Company, and Promethean Builders and Metropolitan Walters are constructing it. According to Promethean Builders’ website, the development will consist of 206 modules on 13 floors and will be designed to meet Passive House standards, as well as having a number of other green certifications.

Gilbane says on its website that the development is its first modular one. The units are constructed off site in a factory, then stacked together and connected to mechanicals on site, saving time.

Renderings show the stacked modules will be covered by a traditional red brick and tan stone facade with arched windows.

Linden Grove was designed by Chris Benedict, an architect who specializes in sustainable building. She designed two early Passive House affordable buildings in Bushwick at 424 Melrose Street and 802 Knickerbocker, both of which were more modern in style than this one.

Senior housing and services provider JASA will manage the property and provide supportive services focused on health and wellness and that promote healthy aging in place, according to the project website.

The site, which sits on Linden Street between Wilson and Knickerbocker avenues, was formerly a parking lot for one of Bushwick’s Hope Gardens properties. Hope Gardens is a hugely significant public housing development in Bushwick, built in the 1980s in a collaboration between local residents and the government after the devastating fires and destruction of the 1970s.

In a 1993 New York Times article, the reporter called it “one of the least heralded and most successful urban reclamation projects in New York City”.

“At its heart is the largest public housing project built in America since the Reagan Administration took office in 1981 — a development, unconventional for New York, consisting mostly of three-story buildings, which sprawl out over once-filthy lots for a half mile or more. Its residents have named it Hope Gardens.”

According to the article, the low-rise buildings “are known as the townhouses by their Black residents and casitas by Hispanic residents.” The New York City Housing Authority development also includes three high-rise apartment buildings, one of which is specifically for seniors. The new development will be the fourth.

In 2019, NYCHA announced a controversial plan for much-needed repairs for existing Hope Gardens units, something residents said was sorely needed. NYCHA plans to convert Hope Gardens to Section 8 based housing, then pay for repairs by leasing the buildings and land to private developers.

City records show NYCHA entered a ground lease with JASA in 2022 for the site at 223 Linden Street. NYCHA will continue to own the site. The complex has received financing from the city’s Housing Development Corporation and Housing Preservation and Development, as well as from TD Bank and Raymond James Affordable Housing Investments. When the project was announced in 2019, the city said in a press release it was part of former mayor Bill de Blasio’s Seniors First initiative, which funds affordable senior housing developments through the Senior Affordable Rental Apartments program.

According to the project’s website, the building will open to residents, likely selected through a lottery system, in 2024.

Linden Grove is the latest in affordable housing developments for seniors to be built and operated by third party developers on NYCHA land.

In June, the city announced plans for a new 13 story, 200-unit affordable senior development, Weeksvillage, to rise on NYCHA’s Kingsborough campus in Crown Heights, which will be managed by the nonprofit affordable housing developer CAMBA Housing Ventures.

In Bed Stuy, RiseBoro Community Partnership Inc., Selfhelp Realty Group Inc., and Urban Builders Collaborative LLC are currently working on a new development on land in NYCHA’s Sumner Houses complex.

In 2018, an 18-story development for LGBTQ seniors topped out in Fort Greene, built by BFC Partners and SAGE on land in NYCHA’s Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses. In 2014, developer L&M Partners bought a 50 percent stake in the Saratoga Square NYCHA senior housing complex at 930 Halsey Street in Ocean Hill and other NYCHA properties as part of a plan to repair the buildings in exchange for federal subsidies.

[Renderings via Gilbane Development Company]

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