BATON ROUGE - Volunteers of America has announced it will be building more than 100 new apartments near the historic Spanish Town neighborhood.

The organization has been awarded $5.7 million in Community Development Block Grant funds to develop 122 apartments for families and veterans. The funding was received from the Louisiana Housing Corporation as part of its 2016 flood disaster recovery efforts.

Spanish Town is Baton Rouge's oldest neighborhood and was previously home to single-family shotgun and bungalow style homes. Many of the homes have been demolished over the years.

“We are thankful to the LHC for this funding which allows us to continue to provide much needed neighborhood-based housing for working people in Louisiana communities,” says Victor Smeltz, Executive Director of Renaissance Neighborhood Development Corporation. “The currently underutilized and undeveloped 2.56-acre full city block proposed for this new development fronts onto BREC’s Spanish Town Park and is in an area targeted for revitalization."

Valencia Park, the new multi-family mixed-income housing community, will return much needed residential housing to this newly vacant site as infill development.

Once complete, Valencia Park will consist of one three-story apartment building, containing 62 one bedroom/one bath units. It will also have 54 two bedroom/two bath and 6 three bedroom/two bath apartments, as well as community amenity space available to all residents.