TROY – The $64.4 million transformation of the Hudson River waterfront neighborhood around the Congress Street Bridge and River Street moved from demolition into construction Thursday afternoon with a groundbreaking for a new John P. Taylor Apartments building.
The Taylor 1 and Taylor 2 nine-story public housing apartment buildings were vacant since 2006 are gone. In place of the two razed towers is the foundation work for the 141-unit Taylor building that will replace the deteriorating structures that dated back to the 1950s.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes. This is the most exciting one. We’re going to have washers and dryers,” said Virginia “Ginny” Clark, president of the Taylor Adult and Youth Tenant Council.
Clark, a 29-year resident of the four-building Taylor Apartments complex, said the Troy Housing Authority and Pennrose, the developer of the new seven-story building where the first floor is retail, have been listening to the tenants.
Housing Authority Executive Director Deborah Witkowski said the authority is contributing to the continued renaissance of the city’s downtown as it offers affordable housing to its tenants.
The authority and city of Troy have coordinated their renewal efforts to create an overall initiative to restore the downtown street grid that was changed when the Congress Street Bridge was built in 1969, which in turn replaced a bridge that dated back to 1874 and was rebuilt in 1927. Troy has been coordinating with Watervliet, its neighbor on the western shore of the Hudson River. The bridge connects the two cities.
The move to a functioning street grid along with new public housing, riverfront access, reconfiguring the bridge and new construction is viewed as pumping life into the neighborhood and finding a redesign that’s not overwhelmed by traffic and the bridge.
Mayor Patrick Madden…
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