Project News / Commercial
Vecino Plans $20M Friendship Villa Supportive Housing in Waco
The four-story project on South 18th Street would pair affordable apartments with services from Waco nonprofit Friends for Life, with first residents targeted for late 2028.
Vecino Group is planning Friendship Villa, a roughly $20 million supportive housing development in South Waco with 65 apartments for residents who need help living independently. The City of Waco’s floodplain notice lists the site as 1704 South 18th Street. Earlier coverage used 2001 South 18th Street; the city notice is the location used here pending reconciliation of the project’s address records.
The building would include one- and two-bedroom apartments along with a learning center, a community room, a garden and a sports court. Waco nonprofit Friends for Life would provide on-site support, including daily living skills and transportation to errands such as grocery shopping. "The people that we serve need a little bit of help to be able to live independently," said Inez Russell, executive director of Friends for Life.
Financing and delivery targets
The project is financed as a housing tax credit deal. Rising costs and changes in the value of tax credits have already reduced its size. "We've had to shrink that number down to 65," said Val DeLeon, Vecino's director of development for the South region. The developer has not disclosed the earlier unit count or the income levels the apartments would serve.
Vecino hopes to close financing in 2027 and begin construction soon after. The developer estimates about 18 months of construction and first occupancy by the end of 2028. Those are targets, not a confirmed notice to proceed. No architect or general contractor has been publicly identified in the records reviewed.
Planning record and wider housing work
Waco’s public notice describes a 2.3-acre site, of which approximately 1.8 acres lie within the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard floodplain. It lists 40 one-bedroom and 25 two-bedroom apartments and a detention pond. Comments on the floodplain review are due November 12, 2026. This planning step does not itself confirm financing, a building permit or construction approval.
Vecino develops affordable and supportive housing and lists offices in Troy, New York; Atlanta; Springfield, Missouri; and Salt Lake City. The company reports 52 developments with 4,851 units in 14 states and 31 cities. Its only Texas community listed is Libertad Austin, a 198-unit development on Gardner Road in East Austin with about 50 units reserved for people experiencing homelessness and services from Caritas of Austin. Its 2021 application to the Austin Housing Finance Corporation put that project's total development cost at about $47.8 million, with a $3 million request to the agency. That application described Libertad as Vecino's second Texas project, naming Espero Austin at Rutland as another, and said the company then had 18 supportive communities with 1,196 units in seven states.
Friends for Life has served seniors and adults with disabilities in Waco for 35 years. The nonprofit has separately pursued housing plans of its own; in early 2025 it outlined two complexes of 93 and 120 units near Lakeshore Drive and College Drive with rents set at 30% of income, saying more than 3,800 seniors were waiting for housing in Waco. How that effort relates to Friendship Villa has not been stated.
