Open only a week or so, about 50 of Freedom Place's 68 apartments are already occupied. <\/p>\n
After more than a year of work, the long-abandoned apartment building in St. Louis' Vandeventer neighborhood has been transformed as residences for homeless veterans. <\/p>\n
Behind the $12.7 million project at 4011 Delmar Boulevard is the Vecino Group, a housing developer from Springfield, Mo. Vecino officials and state Treasurer Clint Zweifel took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony today. <\/p>\n
The five-story building completed in 1928 is about three blocks from the John Cochran VA Medical Center. Each Freedom Place apartment has all the usual appliances, including a dishwasher and laundry machines. Rents are far below market rates. <\/p>\n
Freedom Place is the first St. Louis project for Vecino, whose focus is on affordable housing and historic rehabilitation in its home territory of southwestern Missouri. <\/p>\n
Sources of Freedom Place funding included state and federal low-income housing tax credits, plus state and federal historic preservation tax credits. <\/p>\n
Among the residents is Daryl Fuller, 62, an Army vet who said he served in Vietnam in the early 1970s. He watched the ribbon-cutting in Freedom Place's lobby. Fuller said he became homeless months ago, then spent time at the New Life Evangelistic Center downtown. <\/p>\n
I'm not saying I was in hell, but this is heaven, he said. <\/p>\n
Tim Bryant covers commercial real estate, development and other business stories for the Post-Dispatch. He blogs at Building Blocks, the Post-Dispatch development blog. <\/p>\n
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