The East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority hopes to secure financing in the next 90 days for its planned mixed income, multifamily development near the Water Campus.
River South, as the complex is known, will have 46 two- and three-bedroom units, most of which will be affordable housing units. Between six and 10 units, however, will be market rate, according to the housing authority’s executive director Richard Murray.
The apartment complex will be located on Oklahoma Street between Nicholson Drive and Highland Road across from the Water Campus.
The project, which has been on the drawing board for several years, has been slow getting off the ground for a variety of reasons. Most recently, the slowdown has been the result of uncertainty surrounding possible changes to the federal tax structure.
The housing authority is planning to finance the project, in part, through a low-income housing tax credit program. But with uncertainty about changes promised by the Trump administration, investors aren’t buying as many tax credits as they had been.
“Investors who typically buy these credits are kind of taking a wait-and-see approach,” says Chris Odinet, a member of the housing authority board of directors and its immediate past president. “If their tax burden goes down, they may not need as many tax credits as they thought they did.”
Nevertheless, Murray is optimistic the housing authority will be able to secure financing for the project by mid-May, based on recent discussions with partner agencies, and that construction on the project could start by this summer.
River South is not to be confused with River House, a multifamily complex of 224 units also located near the Water Campus on the site of the old Prince Murat Hotel. That development is currently under construction.
Plans have also been announced previously for a River District, which would be a mixed-use development along Nicholson Drive near Magnolia Mound Plantation, and River Park, a mixed-use project along the riverfront downtown. Both of those projects have been stalled for years, however, due to financing and legal issues.
—Stephanie Riegel
