A new building with 35 apartments and 10 retail condos at the entrance to South Providence was dedicated on Broad Street the other day. SouthSide Gateways is the commendable work of Stop Wasting Abandoned Property — better known as SWAP.

The nonprofit developer of affordable housing has been erecting or fixing up houses on vacant lots for 32 years, and in the last decade or so has about 150 projects under its belt. SouthSide Gateways is its most ambitious. The site had been a Tire King, and while the utility of tires is unquestionable, replacing a defunct tire emporium with three dozen one- and two-bedroom units renting for $550 to $638 a month definitely qualifies as “stopping waste.” Moreover, one of the retail condos has been taken by Amos House, which will offer employment for its job-training graduates at the Friendship Café.

The $10.5 million raised from city and state housing agencies, the nonprofit Rhode Island Local Initiative Support Corporation and the Bank of America financed the building. It was designed by local architect Robert Billings, and it looks great. That’s because SWAP Director Carla DeStefano decided that “classic New England-style wood-frame housing” would fit the neighborhood far better than “an I.M. Pei-like building.”

Tenants are already lining up to live in a building that puts a big dent in the affordable-housing crisis locally, and without assaulting the senses. Good work!