Though the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority named J. Wesley Daniels as its new CEO back in April, the deal only became official Thursday, when the agency board approved a five-year contract for Daniels.
Daniels played a key role in helping secure a $30 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Choice Neighborhood Grant earlier this year. In his role at the helm, Daniels—who joined the agency in 2016 as head of its real estate development arm, Partners Southeast—is overseeing an aggressive strategy to add hundreds of new affordable housing units to an underserved market.
Later this month, the housing authority will break ground on a 19-unit development on Oklahoma Street near the Water Campus called the River Lofts. The $5.2 million project will include a mix of mostly affordable units with 25% market-rate units.
Nearby, the authority recently celebrated the ribbon cutting on the $10.8 million River South phase II scattered-site housing development, which added 46 new mixed-income units to the market.
And in 2020, the authority will break ground on two new multifamily developments: the 99-unit Cypress at Gardere, a $22 million senior-living complex on a five-acre tract just off Highland Road; and, the Cypress at Ardendale, a $35 million development at the new Ardendale urban village that will add 172 units to the market.
Daniels says there is pressing demand for affordable housing in the market.
“We have to put more units on the ground,” he says, noting that the 46-unit River South phase II development had a waiting list of 2,500 before it opened.
Part of the agency’s new approach to housing is to develop multifamily complexes that are as attractive and well built as market-rate properties.
“Our new vision and mantra is that anything we develop will be indistinguishable from any other market-rate product,” he says. “Affordable housing shouldn’t look like affordable housing.”
