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A run-down Bay Area public housing complex — once the home of late rapper Tupac Shakur — is about to get a major upgrade, with the state spending close to $300 million once the project is complete.
Golden Gate Village in Marin City has long been plagued by complaints of crumbling conditions, rodents, mold and an outdated electrical system.
Now the 60-year-old public housing complex is getting a massive facelift, with the first phase of a three-part overhaul already underway.
The total project is expected to cost $266.6 million, with funding coming from municipal bonds and federal low-income housing tax credits. About $31.8 million in municipal bonds were sold last week by the California Municipal Finance Authority, Bloomberg News reported.
The sprawling 30-acre complex is home to roughly 300 low-income families and 296 apartments.
The first phase will overhaul 14 of the complex’s 28 buildings and renovate 88 units. The work is expected to take up to two years and cost $97.6 million.
Residents who have endured the complex’s deteriorating conditions for years say the long-awaited transformation is long overdue with complaints piling up over rodents, mold problems, along with an outdated electrical system and more.
“Everybody is excited [about the renovations], it’s been what, 60 years?” said Scott Joo, a three-year resident of Golden Gate Village, told Pitch.
“In the picture, the [renovations] looked good, very fancy, like a modern apartment, so everybody is satisfied. They definitely need [the renovations] to better the life of tenants physiologically and mentally.”
The first phase will also bring a Section 8 housing assistance payment contract covering 87 of the 88 renovated units for 20 years.
But getting the aging complex into shape will come with a major headache for the people who live there: they’ll have to move out while the work is underway.
The project is being completed in three phases to limit the disruption, but residents could still face months away from their homes.
“We’re doing [the revitalization] in three phases, because it’s 300 units, and we’re going to have to relocate people for up to four months while the renovation gets done,” Kimberley Carroll, executive director of the Marin Housing Authority, said of the estimated 5 year project.
The massive redevelopment also carries a major piece of Bay Area history.
Shakur’s family moved into Golden Gate Village after relocating from Baltimore to California in 1988, before eventually settling in Oakland.
The housing project even made its way into the rapper’s music. On his 1995 track “My Block,” Shakur rapped:
“In the jungle of Marin City, that’s my block, that’s right,”
Golden Gate Village was built in 1960 as “permanent affordable housing, securing homes for black residents and families who were restricted from relocating due to racist housing covenants of the era,” according to architecture firm Pyatok.
The complex had previously served as temporary housing for World War II shipyard workers.
In 2017, it was added to both the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historic Resources.
For Shakur fans, the renovation also comes at a striking moment.
The rapper was fatally shot in a Las Vegas drive-by in 1996 at age 25.
This week, the long-delayed trial of Duane “Keefe D” Davis, the man accused of orchestrating the killing of the hip-hop legend, finally got underway.
Davis, 62, has pleaded not guilty to orchestrating the murder of the rapper, also known as 2Pac.
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