Msgr. Anthony J. Barretta Apartments

Project Details

Project Description

Developed under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan (NHMP), the Msgr. Anthony J. Barretta Apartments prove that affordable housing can be both well designed and contextual. Completed in 2013 at a cost of $185 per square foot—well below the average for affordable housing—the 69,877 SF project was made possible through a consortium of public and private organizations in partnership with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR). Believing that a safe, affordable home is essential to providing stability to society’s most vulnerable population, Catholic Charities, in partnership with Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), transformed some of its underutilized land to help satisfy the need for housing in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. The available parcels were not all adjacent, however. RKTB’s solution was to base the housing complex on the firm’s innovative Affordable Infill Housing Prototype developed in 2001. The sustainable project was designed with the intention of obtaining a LEED rating. As in all projects based on the infill protoype, a key energy and cost-saving element is the single, glass-enclosed stair on the front of each building that eliminates the need for an elevator. Conceived as an extension of the street, the stair gives access to two apartments per floor on four floors, thereby allowing for each apartment to have two exposures to promote cross-ventilation—another energy/cost-saving feature. The strong visual connection between the stair and the street below also promotes a strong sense of security. The Msgr. Barretta Apartments have garnered wide acclaim, proving that affordable housing can provide a pleasant, socially acceptable place to live while serving as a strategy for renewing urban neighborhoods. Within the first week of their opening, over 5,000 families applied for the 64 apartments that were awarded through a lottery system—eight of which were designated as Section 8 for very low-income tenants.