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New apartment units open in Rochester's East End

Randy Gorbman
/
WXXI News

There’s more housing coming to Rochester’s East End.  Area officials cut the ribbon Monday on Charlotte Square, a development on Charlotte Street that includes 72 units. Most of the apartments have market rate rents, with several apartments set aside for people who make under a certain income.

It was developed by Home Leasing, and CEO Nelson Leenhouts says even with the discussion that comes up sometimes about all of the housing being developed downtown, his company had plenty of demand for this project.

“Here at Charlotte Square we have 72 apartments, they’re all rented, we have just one to be moved into in the next week and I think we have dozens of people on the waiting list already, so that’s a good example.”

Home Leasing is also constructing 10 townhomes near the just-completed apartments; and the company is also planning to put up 50-mixed income apartments along the Inner loop.

Heidi Zimmer-Meyer, president of the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation says that currently there is more than $900 million worth of projects in the works downtown, with a lot of that involving housing.

“7,000 people call downtown home now, and with all the projects that are in the pipeline, more than 3,000 additional people are going to be moving into downtown over the next 3 to 5 years.”

The Charlotte Square housing project represents an investment of $18 million, with financing provided by M &T bank,  private investors, and an organization called Community Preservation Corporation.  The city and county  also offered some incentives.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.