Dryvit Systems, Inc.

The Pope Francis Apartments at Loreto

The 83,000-square-foot Pope Francis Apartments, with 135 affordable apartments plus supportive services, community spaces and on-site laundry, represents several innovations for design and development of affordable housing. RKTB drew on decades of experience with housing for the New York Metro Region to help make the project financially feasible for nonprofit owner-operator Catholic Charities of Brooklyn & Queens. Sustainable design methods include integrating rooftop solar panels to reduce reliance on electricity from the grid. Perhaps most importantly, the project team worked closely with the owner and community at large to ensure a sensitive treatment of the site where the locally beloved and iconic Our Lady of Loreto church previously stood. To ensure that the site would benefit the Brownsville neighborhood and reknit a community fractured by the demolition of the church, long a neighborhood hub, the architects first had to help Catholic Charities to devise a financially viable solution. Refocusing the development on senior housing, RKTB designed a much bigger residence than originally conceived to take advantage of a recent New York zoning rule modification: the Affordable Independent Residences for Seniors program. According to associate principal Nelson Vega, Assoc. AIA, "Combining these allowances with reapportioned rights from adjacent sites allowed us to increase developable floor area from just 25,000 to over 80,000, making the project feasible for Catholic Charities as they envisioned it, with lots of affordable units and on-site services for the community."