In what the Albany Times Union describes as "a rare proposal for in-fill housing in a Capital Region city," a developer plans an upscale development of five rowhouses on a long-vacant lot in Downtown Albany's Center Square residential district.
The paper reports that newly constructed homes -- particularly single-family houses -- are uncommon in central-city sections of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, even in trendy areas like Center Square, located just west of the city's Empire State Plaza. Housing lost to fire or decay is rarely replaced in Downtown locations, according to the article.
Except in rare instances, developers prefer suburban locations because it's relatively expensive to build in dense urban locations, where only a few homes can be build at a time, losing the cost savings associated with larger projects. A lack of new housing has historically hurt efforts to attract or keep middle-class residents in central-city neighborhoods, according to the Times Union story.
The proposed single-family homes are proposed to the north west of the state Capitol, as construction continues on a new office building project that is preserving the facades of the long-derelict former Wellington Hotel and Elks Lodge on State Street to the east.
Read the full Times Union story at:
http://archives.timesunion.com/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=8603582
