In Oaklyn, renewing this old apartment house
If the apartment building at 206 White Horse Pike in Oaklyn had a name, it is lost to history. "People just called it 206," says Mayor Bob Forbes, whose grandmother once lived there.
If the apartment building at 208 White Horse Pike in Oaklyn had a name, it is lost to history.
"People just called it 208," says Mayor Bob Forbes, whose grandmother once lived there.
Decades of namelessness - as well as emptiness - should end in March, when the first tenants arrive at the freshly renovated and stylishly rebranded "Oaklyn Villas" apartments.
"This is a one-bedroom," developer Richard DePetro says, guiding the mayor, two Camden County officials, and me on a tour of the $1.9 million project.
"These are the original oak floors," DePetro adds. "Rather than rip them up or cover them, we're restoring them. If you give tenants something to respect, they'll respect it."
Built in 1928, the three-story, 24-unit building was vacant for nearly 20 years before DePetro, the borough, and the Camden County Improvement Authority teamed up to bring it back to life.
Oaklyn acquired the property through eminent domain after a previous owner's renovation efforts started and stopped for many years.
"There was some progress, and the taxes were paid," Forbes says. "There weren't broken windows, and if there were issues with property maintenance, they were taken care of."
The improvement authority contributed $350,000 in federal affordable-housing funds; DePetro obtained private financing, including a $1.25 million construction loan from Investors Bank of Short Hills, Essex County. Work started last June.
As an incentive, the borough offered the developer its first-ever payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT.
The annual PILOT on the project will start at about $12,000 and rise 3 percent annually over the life of the agreement, which could be as long as 30 years. The borough can renegotiate the agreement after 15 years.
"This was a [sizable] project on property that had sat vacant for so long, and we felt we had to be creative," Forbes says. "If it was a smaller project, I don't believe we would have been interested.
"PILOTs are tools, and we have other tools in our toolbox," the mayor adds. "We didn't make the decision to use it lightly."
DePetro leads us up the stairs, down the freshly dry-walled halls, and through several apartments. The place is filled with the sound of power tools, pounding hammers - and Latin music blasting from radios.
"The first time I was in here . . . marauders had taken what they wanted," the developer recalls of his visit a couple of years ago. "The copper pipes were all pulled out, but I saw the location, and the Spanish Colonial revival architecture. The building had good bones."
DePetro's Monmouth County firm also renovated the 54-unit Wellwood Manor apartment complex on Maple Avenue in Merchantville.
That $3.9 million project was completed in 2013; it helped sell the authority and the borough on DePetro's Oaklyn proposal.
"He did a good job," says Gino Lewis, the authority's director of housing. "Quality workmanship."
Adds Forbes, who's an architect, "We looked at Wellwood and said, 'Why would we not want this in Oaklyn?' "
Oaklyn Villas will include five units for tenants who have low or moderate incomes.
And despite the granite countertops in the kitchens and the full-tile bathrooms - "I don't use those plastic shower inserts in my projects," DePetro says - rents for the 19 other units will start at $650 for a studio and $725 to $750 for a one-bedroom.
(As a starving young journalist in the late 1970s, I looked at an apartment there. The building was affordable then, and I'm glad it will continue to be.)
Oaklyn Villas also occupies a key site in the borough's White Horse Pike redevelopment zone, which is seen as a key to the continued vitality of Oaklyn.
The unpretentious, blue-collar community of 4,000 occupies less than one square mile along the busy pike.
"We don't see it as a downtown but as a lively business district," Forbes says. "It's a work in progress."
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this column had the wrong number for the building. It is 208, not 206.
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