From Public Housing to Market Rate Condos

Brick Towers, the housing project where Cory Booker lived before becoming mayor, is being demolished. A Star-Ledger article from December 12th that Gaetano found describes what will take its place:

Uni-Penn has partnered with the housing authority to build 150 units of mixed income [housing] with retail on the ground floor in one structure and 50 condominiums. Another 80 rental units will be built on Montgomery Street. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provided a $12 million grant for demolition.

Today's demolition is part of a major effort of the authority to remake its portfolio. Last month, the authority announced that it was tearing down the 502-unit Baxter Terrace because it was obsolete, located in a high-crime and high-poverty area and would cost too much to repair.

The authority also told residents of Felix Fuld last night that the 285 unit complex on Muhammad Ali Avenue would also be demolished. Better known as "Little Bricks" the complex suffers from the same high crime and high poverty as Baxter Terrace. Authority officials said it would cost $41 million to make the complex viable.

I have no idea where the Baxter Terrace nor Felix Fuld project is. I did see Brick Towers, however, and showed a foto here May 15, 2006. By the way, "condominium" is not, as some people think, a type of structure (townhouse or multi-story apartment) but a form of ownership. So I don't know whether the 50 condos will take the form of townhouses.
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Today's foto show one of the few areas of Newark in which solid masonry townhouses were built in the olden days, James Street, Downtown. This is the type of housing (much of it clad in stone and called "brownstones", tho even brickfront buildings are often called that) that jams entire districts of Manhattan, and makes possible the dense population that supports urban amenities like restaurants, boutiques, and clubs. I will be interested to see what form the replacement for Brick Towers takes.