Woods System of Care has broken ground on a 42-unit housing development in Middletown Township, Bucks County, naming the building after a longtime board trustee who helped shape the project before his death last year. The Barry R. Sharer Pavilion will reserve nine units for people with disabilities while offering the remaining apartments as workforce housing for local employees, including many who work directly in patient care.
According to The Business Journals, the project received $1.4 million in federal funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, with U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick credited with helping secure that money. The pavilion was developed through a public-private partnership involving Bucks County, Middletown Township, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, TD Bank, and a roster of development partners including Domus, CBP Architects, Begley, Carlin & Mandio, Diamond and Associates, Lawrence Lake Interiors, Gilmore & Associates, and Regional Housing Legal Services. Woods System of Care President and CEO Tine Hansen-Turton said housing is fundamental to health, stability and opportunity, per the same report.
A Namesake Who Shaped the Financing
Barry R. Sharer was a longtime Woods trustee and former chair of the Woods Board of Trustees, described in the announcement as a successful business leader and expert in tax-credit-financed attainable housing who helped Woods navigate the development and financing process behind the pavilion that now bears his name. Sharer, a Yardley resident and CPA who specialized in tax-credit housing finance, served on the Woods Board for more than 15 years — including as board chair until July 2024 — before he died following a battle with cancer at age 69 in May 2025, according to the Fitzgerald Sommer Funeral Home.
The groundbreaking brought together Woods leadership and staff, the Sharer family, government officials, development partners and community supporters, the Business Journals reports. Simon Kimmelman, executive vice president and chief legal officer of Woods System of Care, said that people with disabilities were too often last in line for access to resources including housing. Woods System of Care provides services and supports for people with autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities, behavioral health needs and complex medical needs.
From Maple View to a Named Pavilion
Before it carried Sharer's name, the development moved through several working titles and site-plan iterations. Bucks County outlet LevittownNow reported that the project was originally presented to local zoning officials in 2022 under the working name Maple View, and was also referred to as Meadowbrook Apartments, on Woods' Beechwood NeuroRehab campus at 469 East Maple Avenue. When Woods brought the project before the Middletown Township Zoning Hearing Board that year, neighboring residents packed public hearings with concerns about traffic increases and building density in the R-1 residential zone, and developers ultimately reduced the planned building height in response.
During those 2022 hearings, Woods leadership testified that direct care staff earning $17 to $24 an hour faced serious local housing unaffordability, LevittownNow's report notes, but that Medicaid reimbursement caps limited the nonprofit's ability to raise wages to match suburban living costs. That structural tension helped drive the case for building workforce housing directly adjacent to the campus rather than relying on wage increases alone.
Design, Financing and Timeline
The four-story building includes a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and a first-floor medical suite, according to CBP Architects, which designed the facility. Of the pavilion's 42 units, 33 are designated for the broader community to house local workforce members earning $17 to $24 an hour, while nine units are reserved for people with disabilities. The design targets LEED Silver environmental certification and includes custom landscape work meant to tie the building and its health suite into the existing campus, per the same account.
The housing initiative traces back to 2020 as a six-year development vision, formally closed on its Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency financing in June, and held its groundbreaking on August 27, with completion scheduled for summer 2027, the architecture firm reports. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency supported the project alongside Bucks County and Middletown Township, and in June the state agency separately allocated $93.4 million through its Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement fund to support 432 housing initiatives statewide, according to the National Council of State Housing Agencies, illustrating the kind of state trust funding that works alongside federal tax credits on complex projects like this one.
A Tight Regional Housing Market
The pavilion arrives against a backdrop of strained affordable housing supply across Bucks County. As of 2025, the county contained roughly 5,800 federally subsidized rental units under U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs, with about 23 percent reported as unoccupied or available for lease, according to USAFacts. Separately, estimates from the Bucks County Housing Authority indicate that roughly 20 percent of local families issued Housing Choice Vouchers fail to secure a rental unit within their 120-day window because of a shortage of participating landlords and affordable inventory, per a report from BUCKSCO.Today.
Woods System of Care has framed the pavilion as addressing both workforce housing affordability and accessible housing barriers at once. As Hansen-Turton put it in the announcement, stable housing can affect physical and behavioral health, financial security, independence and community connection — the rationale organizers say underpins a project that took six years to move from an early zoning proposal to a groundbreaking bearing the name of the trustee who helped finance it.
