AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) has invested $640 million of union pension capital over the last 10 years to create or preserve more than 24,000 housing or healthcare units in New York's five boroughs.
Penn South is being rehabilitated through an investment of $134 million from HIT. The project will preserve affordability at the union-developed community, refurbish the complex and create more than 600 union construction jobs.
The HIT's $134 million investment in Penn South—the largest in the HIT's history—will preserve the co-op's affordability for another 20 years.
The HIT's New York City Community Investment Initiative was part of the rebuilding from the 9/11 terrorist attack. Under the initiative, more than 95 percent of the units created have been affordable to low - and moderate-income residents and more than 2,800 union construction jobs have been created.
The HIT investment will also finance rehabilitation work at Penn South. The work will be performed entirely by contractors hiring union workers, and is expected to generate over 600 jobs for members of the New York City building and construction trades unions.
The investment in Penn South is also part of the HIT's nationwide Construction Jobs Initiative, which has created nearly 12,000 union construction jobs around the country since 2009 by investing more than $1 billion of pension capital in 36 projects, representing $2 billion of development and more than 13,000 housing units.
With 2,820 units in 10 buildings, Penn South is one of the largest developments to come out of a 1950s movement to create limited-equity cooperative housing for moderate-income people in New York. Today, Penn South's residents include both active and retired union members. Its property management staff is represented by OPEIU Local 153, while the janitors and porters belong to SEIU Local 32BJ.