The new apartments, on the site of the old Chapman Homes, will be called Patriot Pointe, Williams said. He said they could be ready for occupancy by the end of the year.

Patriot Pointe is a part of the larger project to demolish and replace the Booker T. Washington apartments on the corner of Victory Drive and Veterans Parkway. That project will be done in phases, Williams said.

First, CHA will empty all apartments on the northern end, where the new apartments will be built, and demolish them. Then, as the new complex, which will be called Columbus Commons, goes up, the remaining apartments on the southern end will be razed for what the CHA expects will be for commercial development. Williams said he hopes Columbus Commons will be ready for occupancy by the end of 2016.

Demolition contractors have been chosen for BTW and that work could begin sometime this summer. Currently, 106 of the complex’s 392 apartments are vacant, and CHA isn’t placing any new tenants there.

The design of Columbus Commons is still in the works, Williams said. He expects to hold design meetings soon, and will hold at least one at which the “stakeholders” will have some input on what the complex will look like.

“In this case, that’s such an important site that we think community groups, downtown folks, Historic Columbus, might want to weigh in,” Williams said.

The projects are following a trend in public housing here and elsewhere, where traditional public housing projects are replaced with mixed-income complexes that are more upscale. CHA has completed two previous projects, demolishing the old Peabody Apartments and replacing them with a complex called Ashley Station and replacing the dilapidated Baker Village with a complex called Arbor Pointe.