Kingsley House to begin construction on new building

By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer

On April 2, Kingsley House will break ground on a 24,000 sq. ft. facility located next to its historic campus at 1600 Constance St.

The new building, named the Patrick F. Taylor Campus, is a $12 million facility designed to increase capacity for Kingsley House’s Early Head Start program and to create a purpose-built venue to house the Adult Health Care and Senior Center programs.

According to Keith Lieder­man, CEO of Kingsley House, plans for the additions began in 2000. At the time, they had a wait list of a few hundred children for their preschool and early childhood development programs. And as the number of senior citizens increased in New Orleans and across the country, the need for adult day care and senior programs was greater than ever before.

Since 1969, the Orleans Parish School Board owned the land adjacent to Kingsley House’s historic Constance St. campus. In 2001, philanthropists Patrick and Phyllis Taylor helped Kingsley House work out a long-term ready-use agreement with the OPSB. In 2004, a capital campaign began.

But Hurricane Katrina happened, and all expansion plans were shelved for a few years. Kingsley House dedicated all of its efforts to repairing the $4 million in damages to its main facility. In 2008, efforts to secure funding for expansion began anew. In 2013, they were able to purchase the land from the OPSB.

Funding for the construction includes an $8 million New Market Tax Credit transaction with Chase Bank and the Low Income Investment Fund, as well as $2 million in PROP (Project-based Recovery Op­port­unity Program) financing from the Louisiana Office of Community Development. These funds will be combined with money from the Louisiana State Capital Outlay and other private donations.

The new facility will allow Kingsley House to serve more of New Orleans’ medically frag­ile adults and seniors, and feature a specialized Alz­hei­mer’s care unit. It will be a community-based, non-residential alternative to a nursing home or hospitalization. Liede­rman said seniors will be able to mingle with some of the toddlers and small children in Kingsley House’s youth programs.

“The more time seniors spend with infants and toddlers, it increases their mental health and well-being,” Liederman said.

The Early Head Start program will also benefit from the added space. The program takes children from six weeks to three years old. Liederman said those early years are critical for a child’s development. Kingsley House hopes to give children from economically disadvantaged families access to high-quality developmental education at an early age.

Liederman estimates that construction on the project will last until May 2016. He expects the new facility to be open and functional by August 2016. Trapolin-Peer is the arch­i­tect for the project, and Tri Mark Constructors is the general contractor.

“This is a truly historic milestone for Kingsley House,” Liederman said. “We now have the funding needed to move forward with this vital expansion project, which will greatly increase our capacity to serve our community’s most vulnerable infants, toddlers, medically fragile adults and seniors.”

This article originally published in the March 30, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.