Renaissance Neighborhood Development Corporation

Renaissance Neighborhood Development Corporation looks beyond simply providing places for people to live. Its affordable housing strategy considers the way residents will participate in the surrounding community and the catalyst that rehabilitating blighted properties can deliver.

That approach is why the group’s Chateau Carre project has such potential. Renaissance was able to use a Community Revitalization grant of $1 million to acquire this large, previously run-down apartment complex in the Gentilly neighborhood, which is now being revitalized as 150 one- and two-bedroom units of workforce housing. The grant will also help fund operations until program income makes the property self-sufficient.

“The involvement of the Fund made such a big difference,” said Victor Smeltz, executive director of Renaissance. “The financial boost was vital, and their support also was a vote of confidence that we could take this to the next level.”

When Chateau Carre opens in the summer of 2010, tenants will have direct access to public transportation and a dense cluster of retail and commercial uses in a neighborhood anchored by Dillard University, just across the street from the property. Though Gentilly was severely damaged by the levee failures after Katrina, a high level of civic engagement is helping it rebound. Chateau Carre will soon join the mix as a revitalized residential asset and a housing option for working people who are the backbone of the city’s economy.

“This is a great example of how to leverage private resources to make a lot of good things click for a neighborhood,” said Smeltz.