WHITE PLAINS, NY—The first phase of a project that will replace aging public housing units here with modern affordable housing officially broke ground on Friday.

A host of state, city and local housing advocacy organizations attended the ceremonial turning of dirt at the project site on the corner of South Lexington Ave. and Quarrapas Street, including White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach, Deputy County Executive Kevin Plunkett and Darryl C. Towns, commissioner and CEO of the New York State Homes and Community Renewal agency. The multi-phased project will eventually replace the five Brookfield Commons public housing high-rise buildings, formerly known as the Winbrook Campus, with new, green, mixed-use buildings. The project is being developed by New York City-based Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, in partnership with the White Plains Housing Authority. The cost of the first phase of the revitalization initiative called “The Prelude” is $42.18 million. The project calls for 104 apartment units in a 10-story building as well as a 13,500-square-foot community center.

The existing Brookfield Commons features 450 public housing units in five buildings originally built in 1949. Mack Carter, executive director of the White Plains Housing Authority, stressed that no current residents will be displaced as part of the on-going revitalization of the campus.

He says that once the first new building is completed in the summer of 2015, residents of one of the existing Brookfield buildings will be moved into the Prelude property and then the Brookfield building will be torn down. That process will be mirrored during future phases of The Prelude development, Carter says. Financing for future phases will have to be secured before construction could commence.

Financing for The Prelude was provided by the New York State Housing Agency, Division of Housing and Community Renewal (more than $30 million); Westchester County; the city of White Plains; Bank of America; the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The White Plains Housing Authority and the City of White Plains have given us a great opportunity to help transform Brookfield Commons into a thriving green mixed-income community,” Jonathan Rose, president of Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, says. “With its superb location, near the Metro North train station, shopping, White Plains Hospital and the burgeoning Mamaroneck Avenue, all of the elements are there to create a community of opportunity.”