BATON ROUGE — A fire-damaged house on Old Hammond Highway is being transformed into a permanent cultural center for Baton Rouge's Jewish community.

The house sat gutted and vacant for years after a fire, with tarnished paint and boarded-up windows. It will now serve as the new home for Chabad at LSU's Jewish Cultural Center.

Rabbi Peretz Kazen, director of Chabad at LSU, said the center has been serving the community for more than a decade but always operated out of temporary spaces.

"My wife and I have been serving the Baton Rouge Jewish community and the Jewish student population since the summer of 2015," Kazen said.

The center had been searching for a permanent location.

"We've been looking for a place to anchor," Kazen said.

Before committing to the property, the organization brought in professionals to assess the structure.

"We brought in some professionals to evaluate if this structure that we see here, if that is an asset or a liability," Kazen said. "When they determined it was an asset, we realized that this could really be a beautiful Jewish Cultural Center."

Kazen said the center's mission is focused on the community it serves.

"My wife and I, after being in the community for some time and speaking to the various stakeholders and constituents, we've developed a mission statement of strengthening Jewish pride, knowledge and celebration," he said.

Renderings of the finished cultural center look very different from the current structure, though Kazen expressed confidence that the vision will fit the existing building.

"Being able to have an anchor in a place in which people can come to recognize as a home where they can experience their Judaism or learn about their Judaism is something that excites us," he said.

Bricks and boards are now ready for a remodel as the old house prepares to become the community's new permanent home.