Jul 18 2005
Mercy Housing, a leading national not-for-profit housing organization, and the Los Angeles Community Design Center, an award-winning region non-profit designer, developer and operator of affordable housing will host the groundbreaking ceremony for New Dana Strand, a former World War II public housing development, at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, July 18.
"Mercy Housing is proud to be a part of the redevelopment of Dana Strand," stated Jane Graf, Regional President, Mercy Housing. "This development will soon provide quality, affordable housing where low-income families and seniors can thrive in a healthy community."
Mercy Housing and the Los Angeles Community Design Center, hand-selected by the Housing Authority of Los Angeles, will begin the development of 413 units of quality, service-enriched housing for low-income families and seniors on a site where a dilapidated World War II public housing formerly stood.
"New Dana Strand will be a livable, mixed-income, mixed-use community that is affordable to a wide range of households. The revitalization effort's goals are to attract capital and investment into this historically neglected neighborhood and to remove existing obstacles to neighborhood economic development," explained Robin Hughes, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Community Design Center.
The development consists of a variety of housing types. The 120 unit Garden Apartments, 116 unit town homes, 100 units of HUD 202 senior housing, and 77 for sale, single family homes will be important parts of this mixed- income community. Another important asset for the entire Harbor area will be the 10,000 square foot Life Long Learning Center, which will provide a learning and community meeting resource for the entire neighborhood. The 236 multifamily rental units are being built in two phases. Phase I involves construction of 120 garden style units and Phase II involves construction of 116 town house style units. All phases of the New Dana Strand development are anticipated to finish construction and be fully occupied by 2008.
"The redevelopment of the former Dana Strand marks another important step in the goal of the Housing Authority and its development partners to improve the city's quality of life through comprehensive and innovative redevelopment of its properties as well as the need to preserve the affordable housing stock in Los Angeles," said Rudolf C. Montiel, PE, executive director, HACLA.
The event is sponsored by Union Bank of California, who has invested $21 million in tax credit equity toward the development of the Garden Apartments. Mercy Housing, a national not-for-profit affordable housing organization, has a presence in 40 states, serves more than 50,000 people each day and has developed nearly 17,000 units. Mercy Housing's California operations, with regional headquarters in San Francisco and satellite offices in Santa Cruz, Sacramento and Orange, have 91 properties throughout the state with another 12 in development. Seventy percent of Mercy Housing's residents are families, 20% are seniors and the remaining 10% are people with special needs (formerly homeless, people with HIV/AIDS, and the developmentally disabled).
The Los Angeles Community Design Center is a non-profit architecture, planning, real estate development, and property management firm with over thirty years of community and housing development experience.
The organization has developed over 2,500 units of affordable housing service over 4,500 low-income individuals and working families throughout Los Angeles County.