Providence Housing Development Corporation (Providence Housing) will celebrate the opening of Holy Rosary Apartments on Wednesday, November 6 at 10 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The former Holy Rosary parish campus at 414 Lexington Ave., Rochester has been converted into a vital community center for the neighborhood and the former school, convent and rectory now house 35 beautiful, affordable housing apartments. The redevelopment also includes the construction of 25 new single-family rental homes throughout the Edgerton Neighborhood.
The $15 million development was funded by New York State Homes and Community Renewal/Housing Trust Fund, the City of Rochester, Federal Home Loan Bank through First Niagara, the Greater Rochester Housing Partnership, and the Martin Luther King Fund. Of the $15 million total development cost, Enterprise Community Investment, Inc. provided $9.5 million in equity through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, the largest provider of affordable housing in the United States.
Placed on the New York State and National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior, it also meets the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, the first national framework for green affordable housing. The project was recently named to receive The Landmark Society of Western New York’s Barber Conable Award for preservation.
“The conversion of the Holy Rosary campus into 35 new residential units, paired with the development of 25 new affordable housing units in the surrounding Edgerton neighborhood, is a wonderful example of how public and private partners can best use federal resources to create opportunities where none existed before to build a better, more stable community,” said Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter, 25th District of New York. “I am so proud of Providence Housing, the City of Rochester and the other partners for their commitment to providing quality, affordable housing in northwest Rochester.”
“It is very gratifying to see the resurgence of the Holy Rosary campus in the Dewey and Driving Park Focused Investment Area of the city,” said Mayor Thomas S. Richards. “Thanks to the efforts of Providence Housing, Holy Rosary will remain a cornerstone of Northwest Rochester and a community that residents are proud to call home for many decades to come.”
The apartments at Holy Rosary are targeted to low-income working families and individuals who earn no more than 50 percent of the area median income. Six apartments are wheelchair accessible and three of the apartments are suited for the visually or hearing impaired.
