GLASSBORO, NJ-With Phase 2 of Whitney Crescent nearing completion, 80 distressed units in nine buildings at the Bentley Woods complex here will shortly be replaced with modern affordable apartment homes.

But perhaps as important was the idea of completely renovating a neighborhood, says Lawrenceville, NJ-based Community Investment Strategies, which developed redeveloped Whitney Crescent.

“This one is a favorite of mine because it was new for us – a property that was very, very distressed,” Christiana Foglio, founder/owner and CEO of CIS, tells GlobeSt.com. The project was family housing situated next to public housing, with dangerous laundry rooms and “probably the worst architecture I’ve ever seen in my life. There was no grass for the kids. We saw a huge opportunity.”

CIS was invited by the residents to help with rebuilding the project, with the municipality also assisting enthusiastically. “The police chief participated in the site design,” Foglio says. “This neighborhood was victimized by drug dealers, gangs, and the like.”

However, it took two years to get the property under control, as borough officials negotiated with the former owners to acquire the property under the Fair Housing Act, through eminent domain.

Funding for the $24 million is provided by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency ($1.5 million), Federal TCAP Fund ($4.7 million) Gloucester County HOME ($150,000), Glassboro Affordable Housing Trust Funds ($1.03 million) and Federal Home Loan Bank of New York ($600,000), and JP Morgan Chase. The developers contributed $540,000 in equity, and taxpayers’ equity comes to $15 million. Since the complex was built prior to 1980, the borough did not receive any Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) credits. However, as a newly developed community, Whitney Crescent will be eligible for COAH credits.

The 9.5-acre project entailed repositioning a neighborhood, taking one street that simply “didn’t fit in and didn’t feel right” with the rest of the area.  It also involved relocating residents for period of time, as buildings were demolished and replaced.

“The good part was that it was a really inefficient site plan, which allowed construction without immediate demolition,” Foglio said. However, the extensive renovation did allow some relocations through Section 8 vouchers. “This is an occupied new construction,” Foglio says.

The new energy-efficient apartments include numerous amenities such as hardwood floors, and washers and dryers in each unit and dishwashers. Residents also benefit from 24-hour emergency maintenance and on-site property management.  The first 40 units were occupied in the spring, and two three-story buildings of 20 units each will be ready for occupancy this fall. Twenty more units are expected to be completed at year-end.

And the success of turning around a community is encouraging CIS to pursue similar development. “We learned so much doing it, that we are looking at other existing properties that have become a problem,” Foglio says. “ We’re getting a lot of traction to that approach.”