Twice as nice: LB Housing Authority gets $30M for two projects

By Neil Schulman
Long Branch — The New Jersey Housing and Morgage Finance Agency will be giving the Long Branch Housing Authority approximately $30 million to start two projects, a rebuilding of Woodrow Wilson Homes and senior units at the former Gregory School.

Long Branch Housing Authority Executive Director Tyrone Garrett announces the state has funded not one but two of its proposed projects.

In a press conference on Monday, LBHA Executive Director Tyrone Garrett said that he had learned about the approvals last week, from the Department of Community Affairs. The HMFA will award approximately $16 million for work on Gregory School, and $15 million for Woodrow Wilson Homes.
The application process was competitive; speakers said the state reviewed 34 potential projects around New Jersey, and funded only a dozen. Garrett said this may be the first time in history the state has funded two applications from one city in the same round.
“I was honestly astonished,” he said. “We didn’t want to pick one over the other. I think they were just two great applications.”
The projects are being developed along with the Authority’s non-profit subsidiary, Maestro Community Development, and Penrose Properties LLC and Conifer Realty/The Metro Company.
The funding is enough for the first phase of both projects, and work is expected to take 12-24 months.
Woodrow Wilson Homes, Garrett said, is currently “a physically distressed location, with flood mitigation that is needed.”
When it is finished, there will be 150 units of housing, replacing the current 136. A retention basin will go where the baseball field currently is. Officials said that due to flooding, that field doesn’t see much use. A rain garden will also be installed, both to mitigate flooding and beautify the area.
The first phase will focus on the area near High Street, building approximately 65 units.
As with the other rebuilt units, the Authority does not want this project to look like affordable housing, even though it is.
Garrett said he wanted it to have a “wow factor,” something that “captivates the individuals of that neighborhood.”
The former Gregory School on Joline Avenue, will eventually have 117 units of senior housing. Extra funding may be available because the building has been designated historically significant. That also means that the facade and parts of the interior will be preserved to keep the flavor of the building.
Charlie Lewis, Vice President of Conifer Realty, said that he was glad it had received the designation and could be preserved. Not only is the architecture interesting, but the place has a lot of sentimental value to the city residents who went to school there over the decades.
“It really seemed a shame to knock it down,” he said. “We were able to make it something living again.”
This project is just the continuation of the work the Housing Authority has done over the last decade, Garrett said. That’s when it switched to a new “asset management” way of running its properties, and decided to expand and redevelop.
Around 2005, the Authority sold 1.2 acres, and leveraged the money from that sale into Hope VI funding to begin rebuilding its properties, the first major renovation the authority had done since the 1970s.
During the last 10 years, the amount of affordable housing has risen. Garrett said there were 643 units when he started, and at the end of this work there will be 730. In addition, the number of Section 8 vouchers also increased.
City Administrator Howard Woolley said that he was impressed with what the Long Branch Housing Authority had accomplished.
“The changes down here are nothing short of monumental,” he said. “This has been far more successful than we imagined. These guys are top shelf, Tyrone and the whole organization.”