Centennial Village Groundbreaking Featured on Flying Kite Media

Flying Kite Media featured our Centennial Village Groundbreaking.  Click here to read the article on Flying Kite Media’s website.

Here is what they had to say:

parkside finally welcomes centennial village, a major new mixed-use development

ALAINA MABASO | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 08, 2015

Flying Kitemay have left our On the Ground home in Parkside for our next stint in Callowhill, but we still have our eye on the news for 52nd Street, and the latest is a long-awaited cluster of major developments on and around the triangle of Parkside Avenue, 52ndStreet, and Columbia Avenue. Mayor Michael Nutter, Councilman Curtis Jones, and others were on hand for a December 1st groundbreaking, with construction commencing this spring.

Centennial Village, a combination of mixed-use apartment buildings, single family homes, and new commercial spaces in West Parkside (planned since 2006), is going up thanks to a partnership with non-profit developer Community Ventures, the City of Philadelphia, and Parkside Association of Philadelphia.

Community Ventures program director Troy Hannigan says the project will include 52 long-term housing units, some of which will accommodate seniors and special-needs citizens, whose income is 20 to 60 percent of the neighborhood median level.

There will be a 30-unit apartment building on the west side of 52nd Street, which will also include the largest of four commercial spaces, which will range in size from about 800 square feet to 4500. The Parkside Association will occupy one of these spaces as its new office, and no tenants have been secured yet for the others, but Hannigan is optimistic.

“We’re hoping for a restaurant on the corner of 52nd and Parkside,” he says.

On the east side of 52nd Street, there will be another mixed-use building: six apartments above and two commercial spaces below, as well as several new single-family homes nearby.

All in all, Hannigan says, Centennial Village will encompass two revamped park spaces, six rehabbed buildings, and three new constructions, with a total budget of about $21 million. Construction will last an estimated 12-16 months.

Hannigan notes that Mayor Nutter has been especially devoted to this development in his own former Councilmanic district.

Centennial Village’s primary financing source is through the low income housing tax credits program of PHFA, but there is also funding from City agencies, and dollars from the West Philadelphia Empowerment Zone for the development of the commercial units, along with investor PNC bank.

“It’s an example [for] mixed-use development throughout Philadelphia,” Hannigan says.