Provided RHG Services

Comprehensive Residential Development Assistance & Advisory Services

Summary

RHG supervised the entire HOPE VI redevelopment at Wellington Ridge, which combined a wide range of funding sources that included:

  • HOPE VI funds
  • Public housing capital funds
  • Low-income Housing Tax Credits
  • PennHOMES Loan from PHFA
  • Federal Home Loan Bank funding
  • Construction financing from Sovereign Bank
  • Public housing operating subsidies
  • Homebuyer assistance from the City of Chester
  • Conventional mortgage financing to be obtained by homebuyers themselves

A final component of the Wellington Ridge HOPE VI project is the Shops at Wellington Ridge. These shops will be comprised of a 125,000 square foot retail center developed on a twelve acre vacant parcel owned by Chester Housing Authority (CHA) which, when opened in 2010, will include the construction of the first new supermarket to be built in Chester in the last 35 years.

CHA will receive a substantial sum for its land, plus at least 200 jobs will be created for local residents, many of whom will receive intensive job training funded by CHA. RHG negotiated this entire undertaking for the CHA.

In 1998, RHG guided the CHA to a second HOPE VI award, this time a $9.7 million grant for the revitalization of McCaffery Village, now renamed Wellington Ridge. The on-site residential portion of Wellington Ridge is now complete and reoccupied.

Plans at Wellington Ridge included the demolition of 350 ramshackle and obsolete rental units on site and the construction of 22 buildings with 110 new rental units. In total, the 22-acre Wellington Ridge site includes:

  • 86 privately developed and managed family rental units
  • 24-unit three-story building for elderly residents
  • 26 on-site homeownership units and 50 off-site homeownership units in the adjacent blighted community of Highland Gardens, now called Wellington Heights

Related Media

  • Chester Housing Authority Judicial Administrator for Development’s Report 2008 by Robert C. Rosenberg  Download report PDF »