New owners of Park Hill Apartments promise to transform living conditions that residents have endured for decades

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The new owners of the Park Hill Apartments are no strangers to cleaning up other people’s messes, with a long track record of rehabilitating run-down buildings across New York City.

The Arker Companies, who will lead the new ownership group’s rehabilitation of the Park Hill Apartments, have their work cut out for them this time, with residents of the eight-building apartment complex having endured decades of neglect regarding the inadequate, unsanitary living conditions they’ve been subjected to.

In late December, the Arker Companies announced that the new ownership group, which also includes L+M Development Partners and LIHC Investment Group, will perform a massive $165 million renovation of the Park Hill Apartments over the next two years.

The previous owner of the Park Hill Apartments, Michael Shah, who is the founder and CEO of DelShah Capital, told the Advance/SILive.com that the complex “was sold to the best affordable housing developers in the city.”

Shah’s relationship with the Arker Companies dates back more than a decade, when the company acquired and rehabilitated another apartment complex he previously owned — Terrace Gardens on Steuben Street in Concord.

On Tuesday, the Arker Companies invited the Advance/SILive.com to an exclusive tour of the Terrace Gardens apartments to highlight the improvements they’ve made and offer a small glimpse into what the future of Park Hill could look like.

“We did approximately a two-year renovation here at Terrace Gardens, which was really transformational. The changes were significant. There was a lot of deferred capital needs here,” said Simon Bacchus, director of development for The Arker Companies.

In the two years after acquiring Terrace Gardens, the Arker Companies replaced aging building systems, reworked the facades, fully renovated the apartments and commons areas and took over management of the two-building complex.

During the tour, Terrace Gardens I, located at 195 Steuben St., appeared clean and in a state of good repair, which as documented by the Advance/SILive.com throughout the years, has not often been the case at the Park Hill Apartments.

“The conditions of the building really are, I think it’s safe to say, night and day, and we feel really good about how we’ve been able to maintain that over more than a decade. We’ve got a great and consistent management team here and we do our best to provide quality service to the residents and they appreciate that,” Bacchus said.

The full renovation of the Park Hill Apartments, which is expected to be completed by January 2028, will include many of the same improvements that were implemented at Terrace Gardens; renovated apartments and common areas, facade and roof improvements, boiler replacements, modernized elevators and improved parking areas.

While those physical, infrastructure improvements will take time to be implemented, the new owners are currently focused on getting to know their tenants and understanding the wants and needs of the community, with a public meeting to discuss the rehabilitation tentatively scheduled for the end of the month.

“We have to build relationships with the residents. We need to understand the community. It’s an existing community that’s been there for a long time, and we’re newcomers there. So we want to be respectful and build relationships and start to build some trust, which we know is not currently there and we’ve got to earn it,” said Bacchus.

Other short-term efforts include cleaning up the property, which as recently as last week was overrun with trash, and bolstering security at the buildings by installing locks on all doors, expanding upon the existing camera system and increasing patrol frequency.

“Our philosophy is that we want to help communities get to the vision they have for themselves. We want to support residents to be proud of where they live, to be comfortable where they live, to feel safe and secure where they live. We’re going to do our best through professional management and a transformational renovation project to achieve this at Park Hill over the course of the next two years and for the long term future,” Bacchus said.