The development arm of the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority, Partners Southeast, has secured financing to develop a 15-unit multifamily complex on Oklahoma Street near the Water Campus.
The complex of three, five-unit buildings will be called Cypress River Lofts, and is the second Partners Southeast development near the Water Campus. The firm is also developing the 46-unit River South complex, which is scheduled to break ground in October and will be adjacent to Cypress River Lofts.
The total cost of Cypress River Lofts will be $2.4 million, according to Partners Southeast Chief Operating Officer J. Daniels. The firm received $1.5 million in federal flood recovery dollars to help finance the project. The other $900,000 is coming from a conventional lender.
Daniels says the intent of the federally funded program—known as the Louisiana Neighborhood Landlord Rental Program—is to help provide badly needed workforce housing in a market that lost thousands of rental units in the August 2016 flood.
Cypress River Lofts, which will include 12 one-bedroom and three three-bedroom units, will only be available to those who earn up to 80% of the area’s average median income for the first five years the development is in operation.
“That is the obligation we have,” Daniels says. “But our long-term strategy is to convert them to market rate units so that we can further diversify the income of the neighborhood and the surrounding areas.”
Cypress River Lofts will feature three-story, walk-up style townhome units with a contemporary architectural design.
“Our properties have more architectural appeal,” Daniels says. “It’s a clear deviation from what we have done in the past.”
Partners Southeast, formerly known as Partners for Progress, underwent a rebrand earlier this year. In May, it announced plans for a senior community called Cypress at Gardere that will be developed on a 4.5-acre site on Gardere Lane between Highland Road and Burbank Drive.
That project is scheduled to break ground in early 2018 and be completed in early 2019. Cypress River Lofts is scheduled to get under way in the spring of 2018, with an estimated December 2018 completion date.
—Stephanie Riegel
