Habitat for Humanity of New Castle County announced the completion of the first four townhomes on the upper Eastside of Wilmington.
The four homes are part of a nine home project at Walnut Ridge, on Walnut Street between 14th and 15th Streets. Dedication of these homes will be held on Friday.
Habitat Board Members, staff, volunteers, and supporters will be joined by Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki, Bank of America Market President Chip Ross, Delaware State Housing Authority Director Anas Bin Addi, and JPMorganChase Market President Tom Horne will dedicate the four homes to future homeowners.
Partnerships with the local business community, federal, state and local government, local foundations and local congregations are essential to Habitat’s ability to provide affordable housing throughout New Castle County.
Habitat leveraged private funds from local banking institutions such as Bank of America and JPMorganChase with government funding from the City of Wilmington and the State of Delaware, and included local foundations like the Laffey-McHugh and Borkee Hagley Foundations, and local congregations, such as Seeds of Greatness Bible, Cornerstone UMC and Westminster Presbyterian.
Bank of America, a long-time supporter of HFHNCC, contributed $170,000 towards the construction of Walnut Ridge, over 2,016 volunteer hours, committing one full day each week, and donated the land where Walnut Ridge now sits.
The Walnut Ridge site is also the fifth brownfield remediated site thanks to support from the State of Delaware and DNREC’s Brownfield Remediation program.
Prior to HFH receiving the site, Bank of America inhierted the site from MBNA America, which purchased the site in their efforts to revitalize the Upper Eastside. In its more distant past, the site was a commercial building, where the original contamination occurred.
The Walnut Ridge project was also made possible by the support of many community organizations; including the City of Wilmington, Delaware State Housing Authority, JPMorganChase, Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, DuPont, DOW, the Laffey-McHugh Foundation, Discover, Capital One, Comenity Bank, Bethel AME, Calvary Baptist, Christ Church Christiana Hundred, Concordia Lutheran, Cornerstone UMC, Ebenezer UMC, First Presbyterian of Newark, Grace UMC, Immanuel Church Highlands, Limestone Presbyterian, New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark UMC, St. Paul’s UMC, Seeds of Greatness Bible, Shiloh Baptist, Trinity Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Newark, West Legacy Trust and Westminster Presbyterian Church. Other local foundations and banking institutions included The Fusco Foundation, Gannett Foundation, Gilliam Foundation, HSBC, TD Bank, PNC Bank, Wells Fargo and WSFS.
