BATON ROUGE, LA – Redevelopment of the former Earl K. Long Medical Center is moving forward after a Dallas-based bank awarded Partners Southeast with $4 million for a planned senior living community.
Partners Southeast was awarded the grant by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas for its Cypress at Wards Creek and Capstone at North Point senior living communities, according to an announcement from the housing developer.
Efforts to transform the Earl K. Long Medical Center have been ongoing for nearly a decade. The public, state-run hospital closed in 2013 and was demolished in 2015. The land, where Airline Highway crosses Greenwell Street, sat empty while multiple attempts to redevelop it stalled out over the past 10 years.
The East Baton Rouge Housing Authority, a parish agency that works to develop affordable housing, purchased the property from LSU in 2023. Partners Southeast, which handles development for the housing authority, and Alabama-based nonprofit the Banyan Foundation proposed the redevelopment.
Each of the two communities will receive $2 million of the $4 million awarded, and a 65-unit facility will be the first phase of building at the former hospital’s location, according to the announcement.
When complete, plans call for the two senior housing communities to have 113 units, “aging in place” amenities, as well as wellness services, child care and education resources.
This was the largest award from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas and is part of $78.9 million in affordable housing grants distributed to communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico and Texas, according to Partners Southeast.
