Hello? I hear you have apartments to rent

BRIDGETON — An older, out-of-the-way neighborhood is working out just fine for construction of townhomes meant to help quiet the clamor for affordable apartments.

Over four phases, Eastern Pacific Development and the nonprofit Gateway Community Action Partnership are approved to build 150 apartments in a three-bedroom layout.

An additional senior citizen building is part of the design, with about 65 units.

Thursday was big day for Phoenix Family Village Phase II. With nail guns going off to the side, and workers toiling on unfinished roofs, a groundbreaking ceremony was held on Green Avenue.

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These events traditionally start before construction, but Phase II actually is well underway.

The first tenants should be moving in this December, according to Eastern Pacific President Hans Lampart.

“So, anyway, we’re excited to have a groundbreaking — when we’re almost finished,” Lampart joked.

Phase II will finish with 56 apartments, with five reserved for people with special needs.

It's the first part of the complex to start coming together, ahead of Phase 1.

The project is an important moment for an area neglected for decades, said City Council President Edward Bethea, also an executive at Gateway,

Bethea said someone riding through this area until now would be struck by the scattering of old, small homes and the lack of family activity. Police were kept busy in the neighborhood, too.

Bethea said as soon as clearing work started, phones started ringing at the nonprofit with questions on how to submit applications.

Lampart said Enterprise Community Investments, a nonprofit in Philadelphia, and past partner TD Bank provided the rest of the financing.

“These are rentals, but they are high-quality rentals,” Bethea said. “And that is something … very much needed.”

Lampart, taking a bow for his latest housing project here, said there probably are 300 people on a prospective tenant “list we’re trying not to start.”

“As Ed said, we put the sign up, (and) within days, the phones were just ringing off the hook,” Lampart said.

“We’re moving forward, doing things that other communities are looking at us shaking their heads,” said Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly.

Kelly, also the president of Gateway, said a type of home called a "shotgun house" was once common in the neighborhood. Some were cleared to make way for the project.

“A shotgun house … is a house that is so small that, (if) you open up the front door and you shoot the shotgun, it’ll go through the house without hitting anything else through the back door,” Kelly said.

Kelly said many people moving here from the South ended up in them. One resident was a distant family member.

“So, I wish some of the elders could still see, could come back and see what’s happening here,” Kelly said.

Financing for the project came from several sources, starting with the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.

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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Townhome project transforming old Bridgeton neighborhood