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More Money from CL&P to Revitalize Buildings

By Kerri Provost

December 17, 2012

NINA received funding from CL&P that would assist with the rehabilitation of a building in the Asylum Hill neighborhood. Sheldon Oak Central, a non-profit housing developer, has recently been given money by the same company to fix up the Horace Bushnell Apartments on Vine Street. The money was given under the Housing Tax Credit Contribution Program of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.

The nine three-story brick buildings were created as workforce housing in the 1920?s. Emily Wolfe, the Deputy Director at Sheldon Oak Central, says that currently, four of the structures are vacant and boarded up. The $500,000 donation from CL&P, she says, “will preserve and respect the buildings’ historic character, bring them back to productive use as attractive amenity-rich family housing.”

The revitalization project on the block of Vine Street between Albany Avenue and Mather Street is expected to provide 74 units of housing. “Sheldon Oak Central and its architect, Crosskey Architects, worked with neighborhood residents and organizations and the City of Hartford to develop a plan for the buildings,” Ms. Wolfe says. This plan, she says, will include “enhanced landscaping and outdoor green space, better lighting and upgraded security features, and larger and more efficiently-designed living spaces.”

Construction is expected to begin in the early part of 2013.