A real estate development firm from New York has begun construction of an apartment building on South Jefferson Davis designed for police officers, college students, service industry workers and others who need affordable housing.

The building is the third major project the Domain Companies has launched near Tulane Avenue in Mid-City in the past year. The firm is also converting the former Baumer Foods processing plant and the former Crescent City Motors site into new apartment complexes.

Between the three projects, Domain expects to spend about $120 million and bring more than
480 apartments into the Mid-City market by the end of the year.

While the latter two developments will include a mix of affordable and market-rate apartments, Domain's latest building on Jefferson Davis will consist entirely of affordable units. There will be 72 apartments in all.

Matt Schwartz, one of the company's founders, said he decided to invest around Tulane
Avenue -- a corridor of vacant lots and tumbledown commercial buildings -- because of its proximity to the downtown medical and business districts and to Xavier University.

He especially hopes to draw tenants from among law enforcement workers if the city moves forward with a proposal for a new criminal justice complex near the existing criminal court at Tulane and Broad Street.

"We were very attracted to the area because we saw the opportunity to create a denser,
more urban downtown core," Schwartz said.

The Meridian, as the newest apartment building will be called, will be located at 750 S. Jefferson Davis between Gravier and Perdido streets. Domain bought the land last October from the International School for $640,000, according to the city assessors' database.

Schwartz said it was previously owned by Tidewater Inc.

Construction is expected to cost roughly $17 million. The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency allocated housing tax credits to the project, and a corporate investor, Centerline Capital Group> of New York, provided $15.7 million through the syndication of those credits.

Schwartz said Centerline will also provide a $1 million permanent mortgage loan through
Freddie Mac, which will eventually pay back a $1 million construction loan provided by the Bank of America.

In addition to developing the apartment complexes, Schwartz said Domain has also bought 30
homes and smaller commercial buildings in the neighborhood that the company plans to renovate. He said rehabilitation of the first four houses is almost complete