Developer / Sponsor

Gulf Coast Housing Partnership / Odyssey House Louisiana

Project Type

Rehabilitation/Renovation

Description

The Odyssey House comprises the rehabilitation and complete renovation of the historic Bohn  Motor  Co.  building, a 42,602 square-foot dilapidated structure  that  has  been dormant  and  exposed  for  over  a  decade. The anchor tenant will  be Odyssey House Louisiana (OHL), a substance abuse treatment facility and federally qualified health center (FQHC).OHL is the largest substance abuse treatment agency in Louisiana, providing vital mental and behavioral health services to an underserved population.

Investment Type

Financing includes $9.5 million in New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation from Enterprise and $5 million in NMTC allocation from Goldman Sachs. 

Market

The OHL development is in New Orleans’ 3rd Ward in the Hoffman Triangle neighborhood in Central City and accessible to bus routes and highways. The redevelopment will provide a community anchor with living-wage jobs, but also a catalyst for broad, positive change for everyone who lives in the area.

Community Impact

Along with providing substance abuse treatment and mental and behavioral health services to an underserved population, OHL plans to establish a community kitchen and culinary skills workforce training program. The goal of the program is to equip adult clients with basic food handling and kitchen sanitation skills and connect them to employment opportunities with food industry partners.
The development is also expected to create more than 50 new permanent jobs, half of which will be filled or made available to low-income applicants or residents of low-income communities. It will also retain nearly 40 permanent full-time positions and create 175 construction jobs.  

The project will achieve Enterprise Green Communities/Energy Star certification.

Developer

Gulf Coast Housing Partnership (GCHP) is a nonprofit community developer that specializes in working with nonprofits, neighborhood-based organizations, and governmental agencies seeking to create essential service facilities, catalytic mixed-use development and affordable housing resulting in healthy, safe, economically and culturally diverse communities.

Sponsor

Established in 1973, OHL is a nonprofit behavioral healthcare facility with a mission to provide holistic and client-centered services. Over the past four decades, OHL has provided comprehensive services to Louisiana’s most vulnerable populations, including people with HIV/AIDS, homeless clients, and clients who possess co-occurring physical, psychological, or emotional disorders. In the 11 years since Hurricane Katrina, OHL has grown from a small, 61-bed treatment program into the state’s largest substance abuse treatment program. OHL currently treats 3,100 unique patients at its existing FQHC and 6,043 unique patients for all services, across multiple locations.

Investor

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base.