City Celebrates Completion of 144-Unit Tenney Place Apartments on Haverhill’s West Lowell Ave.

Economic and Planning Director William Pillsbury cuts the ribbon symbolizing completion of the second phase of construction on the Tenney Apartments. (WHAV News photograph)

One-hundred-forty-four families are set to call the Tenney Place apartment complex on West Lowell Avenue home after Mayor James J. Fiorentini and several local leaders heralded the official completion of the second and final phase of construction Tuesday.

Mayor James J. Fiorentini delivered remarks at Tuesday’s ribbon cutting. (WHAV News photograph)

Fiorentini was among the city leaders—including Economic and Planning Director William Pillsbury and Community and Economic Development Director Andrew Herlihy—to join real estate development firm Dakota Partners at the ribbon cutting off Route 110 and Interstate 495.

Dakota Principal Roberto Arista said the Tenney project symbolizes the firm’s intention to meet tenants where they are. “We all believe that when people live in the community where they work, the entire community benefits,” Arista said. “The proximity to the workplace promotes a better quality of life, health and success in the workplace, and in turn, helps the local economy thrive.”

Some of the tenants calling one-, two- and three-bedroom Tenney units home, Arista said, are a single father with his children, and a veteran with teenage children who relocated to the complex after living in a shelter.

For Fiorentini, the project helps address the No. 1 complaint his office receives, with the exception of potholes, he joked.

“We’re very proud of the new units going in downtown but there has to be a place for the people who were born and grew up here. We cannot afford to have them priced out of the city.”

In 2014, the Massachusetts Housing and Community Development awarded a number of state and federal subsidies and tax credits to phase one of Tenney Place. It also received financing from Massachusetts Housing Partnership, MassHousing, Bank of America and Boston Community Capital.

Clark Ziegler of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership said the Tenney project marks the eighth financing his agency has done in the City Haverhill. He applauded Haverhill for putting a focus on housing for all.

“I don’t know if it’s something in the drinking water, but there’s something about this city, because Haverhill has been receptive for the need for housing at all income levels—downtown and on the periphery—and this has been a really welcoming community,” he said.

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