Ardendale senior housing in Baton Rouge gets $850k grant
Article written by Lara Nicholson, The Advocate
February 1, 2024
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas awarded an $850,000 grant for the development of a Baton Rouge senior community.
The grant, awarded to Partners Southeast, will help fund the construction of Cypress at Ardendale Senior, a $21.1 million senior community with 70 units. The project is part of the BR Choice initiative’s transformation plan for the Ardendale area in collaboration with the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority and other stakeholders.
“Cypress at Ardendale Senior addresses the growing need for senior housing in the Baton Rouge area,” J. Wesley Daniels Jr., CEO for the East Baton Rouge Housing Authority and Partners Southeast, said in a news release.
The senior community on North Ardenwood Drive will feature art installations, a computer lab, fitness center, community room, outdoor patio kitchen, urban park and walkable pathways.
The grant is one of 43 given out by the 2023 Federal Home Loan Bank Affordable Housing Program, which will collectively help create 2,677 new or rehabilitated housing units. Home Bank, a Lafayette-based member bank in Baton Rouge, sponsored the award application for Cypress at Ardendale Senior.
The BR Choice initiative launched in 2013 through a $500,000 federal housing grant to revitalize the Ardendale area, a roughly 2-square-mile area on either side of North Ardenwood Drive between Choctaw Drive and Florida Boulevard, which includes the East Fairfields, Smiley Heights and Melrose East neighborhoods.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded a highly competitive $29.5 million grant to project stakeholders in 2019. The initiative will provide more than 400 new residential units in four phases over the next 36 months, according to Partners Southeast.
Phase one of the project recently finished, creating 170 housing units for $69 million, according to Daniels.