With an oversized pair of scissors, government officials and contractors celebrated the grand opening of the Walter I. M. Hodge Pavilion on Thursday morning in Frederiksted.
The event marked the completed renovation of 248 units across 21 buildings, a new senior center and improvements to the existing community center and management office, according to a V.I. Housing Authority press release. Reconstruction was done under the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration Program — or RAD.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony included remarks from Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., Senate President Novelle Francis Jr., Senate Vice President Marvin Blyden, Disaster Recovery Office Director Adrienne Williams-Octalien, Housing Authority Director Dwayne Alexander, Housing Finance Authority Executive Director Eugene Jones Jr., MDG Design and Construction’s Catherine Levenson, Cost Control Company’s Alfonso Valdes and James Benton, president of J. Benton Construction.
Upgrades to the apartments include new windows, doors, flooring, cabinets, ceiling fans, LED lighting and paint, and each unit now has “low-water usage kitchen and bathroom fixtures, a high-efficiency electric water heater, and EnergyStar-certified appliances,” according to VIHA.
Williams-Octalien said the nearly $117 million preservation effort included $54.4 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and more than $22.5 million from HUD.
“When we talk about the complexity of this project, I don’t want anyone to walk away today thinking this was easy,” Williams-Octalien said.
Housing Authority Director Dwayne Alexander noted that two decades ago, VIHA oversaw more than four thousand units. Today, the number is closer to 1,900.
“And when you think about that, we need to move extremely fast to get more housing here,” he said. “Because we have to restore the housing that we already have, we need to restore the four thousand … that we initially [had], and then add more units for us to be very successful here,” he said.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. compared the territory’s recovery to being a road trip with kids incessantly asking, “Are we there yet?”
“It’s like, every project — ‘are we there yet?’ — and then, they fall asleep and they wake up and we’re here,” he said. “And when you see what took so long, you’re like, ‘Wow, what an amazing thing.’”
