Only 120 families remain in the 550-apartment Mulford Gardens public housing complex in Yonkers. Residents have been moving out since the summer, ahead of its planned demolition this year. Razing the 68-year-old complex is part of a $180 million plan to remake a strip of Ashburton Avenue.

As the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority finishes moving people out over the next month, city officials say they are on track to build replacement housing. The Westchester County Board of Legislators last week approved $4.2 million in funding for infrastructure improvements related to the new housing.

"There's good news, because Mulford Gardens is being accelerated and they've been successful at moving families," said David Simpson, a spokesman for Mayor Phil Amicone.

In 2004, the housing authority won a critical $20 million HOPE VI grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to carry out the Ashburton Avenue Urban Renewal Plan.

The plan includes 800 new units, to be a mix of low-rise public housing, market-rate rentals and homeownership opportunities.

There have been a few setbacks. Construction costs have risen about 25 percent over the past year. Plans to construct an 81-unit senior apartment building on Ashburton - one of the sources of housing planned to replace Mulford - have grown more complicated and expensive because of the steep topography, delaying that project about a year.

The housing authority also is waiting for the Yonkers City Council to approve the transfer of land for the senior building and for the Croton Heights Apartments, a planned 60-unit rental building at what is now the Vineyard Avenue parking lot. The Croton Heights project, however, is expected to start ahead of schedule in late March, officials said.

The Mulford Gardens relocations are also progressing smoothly, officials said. The housing authority has moved 330 families into other public housing or into apartments that accept Section 8 vouchers, while other families have relocated on their own.

"I haven't really heard a lot of complaints," said Beverly Blagmon, president of the housing authority's resident