Urban Horizons II is a 160,000 square-foot mixed-use development that includes 6,800 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, a public sculpture garden and three-quarters of an acre of vegetation including parks and greenroofs.

Urban Horizons II is a project of WHEDCo, a nonprofit Bronx-based organization that, in 1997, opened Urban Horizons I, a successful mixed-use economic development center that provides low-income rental apartments as well as social services, youth education, Head Start, adult job training, microenterprise and a commercial kitchen business incubator. This development, which has won multiple national awards, restored what was the abandoned Morrisania Hospital, closed by the City in 1976 and shuttered for over twenty years. WHEDCo is again raising the bar by demonstrating that affordable housing can be beautiful, must be healthy, and should be wired for high-speed Internet access.

The design of Urban Horizons II recalls a historic Bronx building, while at the same time incorporating 21st century features like high-speed Internet in each apartment and the latest in green building technologies. In a community where asthma rates double the city’s average.

Urban Horizons II offers one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom apartments, along with some studios. The project is underwritten so that applicants must earn at or below 60% of area median income, or $42,450 for a family of four. Rents will be set at $660 for a one-bedroom, $794 for a two-bedroom, and $921 for a three-bedroom.

WHEDCo assembled $45 million in financing from various public and private sources. $19.6 million comes from the sale of tax-exempt bonds issued by New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC), for which Citibank Community Development issued a Letter of Credit. Additional financing came from: New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Mixed Income Rental Program ($7.5 million); and, federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits ($16.8 million), syndicated by Richman Housing Resources, Inc. An addition $7 million was provided from HPD’s Supportive Housing Loan Program and additional tax credits. Green building grants come from the Energy Star Multifamily Program through New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), as well as The Enterprise Foundation’s Green Communities initiative, The Home Depot Foundation, and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, Jr., through his Bronx Initiative for Energy and the Environment. The project has also been awarded a $1.5 million capital appropriation from the New York City Council.