Touro Shakspeare Home Senior Housing Conversion, New Orleans

The Touro Shakspeare Home in Algiers sat empty for two decades after Hurricane Katrina. Now it’s becoming 52 affordable apartments for seniors, which is close to what it was built for in 1933. HRI Communities started the $26 million renovation on Jan. 15, 2026, and expects to finish in early 2027.

Project Scope

The 72,000-square-foot building on General Meyer Avenue replaced an earlier Uptown almshouse tied to benefactor Judah Touro and former Mayor Joseph Shakspeare. It later served as the city’s only public nursing home and then as a privately managed elder-care facility. All 120 residents were evacuated during Katrina in 2005. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The city still owns it. HRI won site control through a 2021 bid process and holds a 99-year ground lease. Landis Construction is the design-build contractor, and HCI Architecture is architect of record.

The work came in two steps. A stabilization phase, paid for with a $6 million city loan and finished in September 2025, abated asbestos, removed deteriorated material, put on a FORTIFIED roof and braced the structure. Financing for the full rehab closed in December, and construction followed in January.

The finished building will have 52 one-bedroom apartments for residents 62 and older earning no more than 50 percent of area median income. The historic chapel becomes a community room, and the courtyards and fountains are being restored. Elevators, windows and building systems are new, and storm-rated windows and doors plus backup power round out the resiliency package.

Why It Matters

The money shows how many pieces a small historic deal takes. The Louisiana Housing Corporation put in $16 million in multifamily revenue bonds and $982,554 in low-income housing tax credits. The state Office of Community Development added more than $5 million in disaster-recovery block grant money through its PRIME-3 program. Federal and state historic tax credits and a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement are in the stack, along with Boston Capital Finance, First Horizon Bank, Stonehenge Capital, the city and the Finance Authority of New Orleans. The Housing Authority of New Orleans is attaching project-based Section 8 vouchers so rents stay at 30 percent of income.

That’s at least eight funders for 52 apartments, or $500,000 a unit. New construction on a cleared lot would probably cost less. It wouldn’t come with a National Register building, a chapel, or an end to a blight complaint neighbors had been pressing since at least 2019.

The stabilization-first sequence is the lesson for cities sitting on decaying historic buildings. Spending public money to stop the damage before a full financing package existed kept this one standing long enough to get one.

Project Team & Details