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Blighted Central City fire station to become affordable housing, child care center

Oji Alexander, CEO of People’s Housing+, an affordable housing developer, stands in front of a decommissioned New Orleans fire station on Oct. 9, 2024. It's the site of a new affordable housing project in Central City that will have seven units and a new community child care center.
Matt Bloom
/
WWNO
Oji Alexander, CEO of People’s Housing+, an affordable housing developer, stands in front of a decommissioned New Orleans fire station on Oct. 9, 2024. It's the site of a new affordable housing project in Central City that will have seven units and a new community child care center.

It used to fight fires. Now, it’s fighting rising rents.

A former New Orleans Fire Department Station in Central City is being converted into seven affordable apartment units and an early childhood education center. Construction kicked off this week on the project at 2312 Louisiana Avenue, with crews installing fencing and beginning exterior cleanup on the century-old structure.

City leaders and development partners gathered on Wednesday to kick off the work, which they said marked the first project under a city framework designed to streamline the repurposing of blighted city properties into much-needed housing stock and child care services.

“This is a model that we are very excited about and looking very forward to replicating,” said Oji Alexander, CEO of People’s Housing+, an affordable housing developer that is spearheading the project.

Renovation of the graffiti-covered station is expected to last through summer 2025. Once it's complete, apartments will be available to rent. They'll be priced at federal HUD fair market values, which are set annually to be within reach of residents earning below 80% of the surrounding neighborhood’s median income level.

The child care center will be run by a local provider, Alexander said, and will have a mix of city-funded and private enrollment slots.

“There will be assistance for folks who can't afford to pay private payer fees,” Alexander added. “There will be a range.”

The price tag for renovating the building is roughly $8 million. Funding comes from a constellation of public and private sources, including the city, Louisiana Housing Corporation, federal infrastructure grants and private investments.

Project leaders said it’s the first city-owned building to go through a new redevelopment process designed to cut through red tape. It gives the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA), a city agency, more power to broker development plans of city properties. Mayor LaToya Cantrell signed off on the process in an executive order issued in 2021.

“This type of project will be replicated to bring other vacant properties into commerce,” said Tyra Johnson Brown, the director of housing policy and community development in Mayor Cantrell’s administration.

The Louisiana Avenue fire station was originally built in 1911, and served as a major Uptown hub for the New Orleans Fire Department for nearly 100 years.

After Hurricane Katrina, the site was decommissioned and repurposed as a polling location for elections. City officials shut down the site after a few years due to disrepair. It’s sat vacant ever since.

New Orleans Councilwoman Lesli Harris speaks at an event marking the start of construction on a new affordable housing project in Central City on Oct. 9, 2024.
Matt Bloom
/
WWNO
New Orleans Councilwoman Lesli Harris speaks at an event marking the start of construction on a new affordable housing project in Central City on Oct. 9, 2024.

Along with the rest of New Orleans, the surrounding neighborhood has seen rent and home prices jump in recent years due to rising insurance rates, gentrification and the increase of short term rental properties.

More than half of renters and 30% of homeowners in New Orleans are considered cost-burdened by their housing expenses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The issue has been a main driver of the metro area’s population decline, as residents flock to more affordable parishes.

Increasing the supply of affordable housing has emerged as a key focus of Cantrell’s administration and the current city council. Voters will decide on the city’s first-ever permanent charter amendment in November, which would allocate millions in taxpayer dollars to housing if passed.

Speakers at Wednesday’s event at the fire station said it was a promising step toward improving housing stock.

“With city investment comes private dollars,” said District B Councilwoman Lesli Harris,. “You see that exactly right here, private dollars, public funds going together to create an opportunity for a once blighted building into something that is going to be magnificent.”

Matt hails from the Midwest. Despite living in California and Colorado for the past 7 years, he still says “ope” when surprised. He earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Journalism from Indiana University. He reports breaking news, human interest feature stories and deeply-reported enterprise pieces.