New Bedford, MA The real estate enterprise Cruz Companies has released its selection to develop and build a new eight-building affordable housing community — transforming a vacant lot into much-needed apartment homes for this rapidly growing coastal city and continuing a longstanding collaboration with local leaders. 

The project, developed by Cruz Companies in partnership with the New Bedford Housing Authority, intends to serve both families and individuals, including those with physical disabilities. Set within a low-rise residential neighborhood and designed by DHK Architects to harmonize with the surrounding Coggeshall St. context, the cluster of three-story buildings will offer 31 units in a mix of one- to four-bedroom layouts, along with a large central courtyard and community green space.

“We’re excited to work with city leaders and the New Bedford Housing Authority on this project, because it’s a rare opportunity to take a vacant lot in a great location and transform it into the type of accessible, thoughtfully planned, and well-built housing this community wants and needs,” said Cruz Companies president and CEO John Cruz III in a recent interview with a regional newspaper. “Our organization has deep ties to New Bedford and we have collaborated with the city many times.”

Recognized as a national leader in affordable housing, Cruz Companies is one of the country’s most venerated and largest 100% Black-owned construction and real estate development and management enterprises. Active across the east coast for more than 75 years, the organization has garnered enduring stakeholder support for its focus on community impact and prioritization of local workforce development, especially in communities of color — including in New Bedford, where shared Cape Verdean heritage has created deep connections between Cruz Companies and local residents and leaders.

In New Bedford, Cruz Companies has also preserved and developed dozens of affordable housing units over the past decade-plus. In addition to the new eight-building development on Coggeshall St., Cruz Companies is currently in the process of adapting three historic and long-vacant school buildings across the city — as well as another underutilized city-owned lot — into 83 units of mixed-income housing, as part of a large-scale project that received funding this spring and will start construction in 2026.

“The housing authority and elected officials know that we care about this city and that we are interested in doing more than just putting up buildings,” said Cruz III. Completion of the eight-building project on Coggeshall St. is anticipated for 2028.