Officials celebrated the first step of a $35 million overhaul of some of Allegheny County’s oldest public housing Monday, with a groundbreaking ceremony in Rankin.
Heritage Highlands will replace the old Hawkins Village, a 198-unit World War II-era public housing complex of brick barracks-style walkups.
On Kenmawr Avenue in Rankin, the now-demolished Hawkins Village opened in 1941.
Rankin Mayor Joelisa McDonald, who grew up in Hawkins Village, said she initially had mixed feelings about the redevelopment, recalling many happy childhood memories there. But she said she realized redevelopment would mean much-needed new investment in the decades-old site.
“I have always believed that my neighbors deserved more, and better,” she said. “If we’re going to provide public housing in Rankin, let it be a place where we are proud of and that anyone will be happy to call home and raise their children.”
The first phase of the new development will have 54 units, with a combination of one, two, three and four-bedroom homes. All units will be affordable; tenants will have to have incomes at or below 60% of the county’s area median income, or $57,000 for a family of four. The fully-completed Highlands development will have 105 units.
Former residents of the site relocated to other public housing properties or were given Section 8 vouchers to use for private rental housing, said Frank Aggazio, executive director of the Allegheny County Housing Authority. Families should be able to return to the site by next fall, Aggazio said.
Prior to its demolition, the site was the housing authority’s oldest property, he said.
“It was 80 years old and hard to keep in good condition,” he said. At the time housing authority officials voted in 2020 to redevelop the property, they cited the lack of funds from the federal government to maintain older public housing as a key reason.
The new site is expected to have larger units and more amenities.
Several elected officials who spoke on Monday said they had toured Hawkins Village several years ago with resident Michelle Kenney, mother of Antwon Rose, and that she had convinced them of the need for improvements to the property.
“She kind of challenged us about all the issues that were here,” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “We spent a morning here a few weeks later. And she convinced all of us… that we needed to make some changes, we needed to fix things up and get this done.”
In addition to funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the project is also funded with tax credits from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, county Community Development Block Grant funds, and other sources.
The new Heritage Highlands site might retain one aspect of the old Hawkins, McDonald said, at least to many residents in the community – the name.
To her and her friends, she said, “It's always going to be Hawkins Village.”
