New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joined with community leaders in Harlem on a rainy Monday morning to celebrate an innovative housing development nearing completion in the neighborhood’s historic Sugar Hill enclave. Designed by David Adjaye, the 191,500-square-foot mixed-use development incorporates permanently affordable housing, pre-kindergarten classrooms, and the new Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling.

“It is so rare to see a city do this kind of project,” the London- and New York-based Adjaye explained at the press conference yesterday before leading a tour of the building. “It seems so obvious, but it is so lacking.” Built on a former brownfield site that most in the neighborhood had given up on, the towering new structure represents a unique community revitalization project that incorporates housing with educational and cultural facilities.