[Video overview: Elaine Braithwaite, Senior Director for New Construction at L+M Development Partners; Dr. Manisha Kulshreshtha, SVP Chief Clinical and Strategy Officer at St. Barnabas Hospital; Linda Goode Bryant, Founder and President of Project EATS; Cooper Gardens Resident Maria Perez; Shanice John, Program Director at BronxWorks; and Korbin Heiss, Managing Director, Community Lending and Investment at Wells Fargo talk about the impact of the Cooper Gardens housing development. The development at St. Barnabas Hospital provides underserved communities with access to fresh produce, solar energy, and a rooftop beehive.]

[Music]

[Elaine Braithwaite, Senior Director for New Construction, L+M Development Partners]

Before all of this, this whole site was kind of an open parking lot. It’s always really great just to see, you know, going from that to, this whole multipurpose project. The Cooper Gardens Project has been a long-time collaboration between Saint Barnabas Hospital, L&M, where they’d be creating this new state-of-the-art health and wellness facility.

[Dr. Manisha Kulshreshtha, SVP Chief Clinical and Strategy Officer, St. Barnabas Hospital]

When we first started this, I think this was a vision of our institution to make sure that our community is well fed, well looked after, and stays healthy. Also, we made sure there were solar panels on top. I think making sure that we’re sustainable is such an important part to this building.

[Braithwaite]

L&M is a triple bottom-line company, and sustainability is at the forefront of the projects we develop. We use ENERGY STAR appliances, low VOC paints, and just tried to make the building as sustainable as possible.

[On-screen text]

The building rated 99 out of 100 on the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.

[Kulshreshtha]

We have a rooftop garden.

[Linda Goode Bryant, Founder and President, Project EATS]

The idea was to have food growing on the roof and have community programs that help to support residents eating healthy, nutritious, plant-based food.

[On-screen text]

230+ lbs. of vegetables are produced weekly during the growing season.

60% is given out to the community weekly through a pantry.

[Braithwaite]

We also really thought it was so critical and so great if we could marry the wellness center with affordable housing.

[Maria Perez, Cooper Gardens Resident]

When I got pulled to live here, I’d seen how the apartment looks. It looks beautiful and it’s the perfect place to raise the boys.

[Kulshreshtha]

We did not want to gentrify this neighborhood and displace anyone from here. We wanted to make sure that this community was able to survive and live here.

[Braithwaite]

Overall, the project has 314 units of affordable housing, and within the affordable housing, we were really excited to be able to provide 95 units of supportive housing through a partnership with BronxWorks.

[On-screen text]

314 total affordable housing units.

95 formerly homeless household units.

[Shanice John, Program Director, BronxWorks]

BronxWorks is a large organization. They provide a lot of everything for residents We want to keep all of our households off the street or out of shelter. We want to make sure everyone has a stable home.

[Korbin Heiss, Managing Director, Community Lending and Investment, Wells Fargo]

I think it’s kind of basic. Studies have shown that living in a stable, affordable home results in stronger outcomes for children, youth, and adults. So while it sounds like a platitude, it’s really an investment in all of us.

[Braithwaite]

We’re so grateful for our partnership with Wells Fargo. We think it’s so critical for partnerships like this to happen so that we’re able to develop these kind of large-scale, complex, mixed-use projects like St. Barnabas. You know, it took a lot of years, but we were so excited to create this project.

[Kulshreshtha]

Our whole mission is to prevent our patients from getting into the hospital. I know it sounds weird for me as a provider and a physician to say that we don’t want them in a hospital, but we want them healthy. That’s our goal.

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