$100M aid is eyed for Co-op City

Co-op City in the Bronx could free up $100 million for capital improvements and repairs at the decades-old housing development by pursuing a lucrative loan refinancing deal — but the Biden administration first needs to sign off on it, according to a couple of New York lawmakers.

Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, both Democrats, paid a visit to Co-op City on Thursday to call on President Biden’s Housing and Urban Development Department to give the cooperative’s board the green light for refinancing a $500 million loan taken out on the sprawling 230-acre complex.

The refinancing opportunity is possible in part thanks to a recent dip in interest rates, Schumer and Bowman said.

“Opportunity knocks, and we should answer,” said Schumer, the Senate’s majority leader, who has sent a letter with Bowman to HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge about the matter.

“HUD needs to clear a path before Co-op City can answer that knock of opportunity. So we’re here to tell our friends to roll out the welcome mat, work with the tenants — the cooperators, rather — and get this done.”

According to estimates included in the letter to Fudge, the refinancing would allow Co-op City to tap between $90 and $100 million in savings that can be funneled into long-term capital investments, like replacing the complex’s aging convectors.

The refinancing would also let the co-op save $800,000 in mortgage payments annually, the letter says.

Co-op City, which is the largest cooperative development in the country with 45,000 residents, can’t pull the trigger on the deal alone because it needs HUD’s Federal Housing Administration to help insure it.

Bowman, a freshman Democrat who represents a district that includes Co-op City, said the refinancing would pave the way for sorely-needed repairs at the complex, which was completed in 1973 and houses mostly low-income New Yorkers.

“This is about bringing resources to communities that have been historically ignored, historically neglected and historically marginalized,” Bowman said.

HUD did not return a request for comment, but Schumer said Fudge voiced interest in helping out Co-op City when they spoke recently.