A $12.7 million rehab of 19 buildings around the Fox Park neighborhood should be underway early next year.

The St. Louis Industrial Development Authority gave preliminary approval to issue up to $6.5 million in housing revenue bonds to help finance the project, led by the DeSales Community Housing Corporation. E. M. Harris Construction is the contractor.

The buildings will get new roofs and windows, and interiors of the 65 apartment units housed in them will be spruced up. While updates on many of the buildings occurred in the '80s and '90s, some were built as far back as the 1880s and need additional updates.

"They're still 100, 120-year-old buildings," said Thomas Pickel, director of the DeSales Community Housing Corporation.

DeSales is a longtime nonprofit community development corporation that revamps properties in the Fox Park and Tower Grove East neighborhoods, where it owns some 264 apartment units in about 80 buildings. It manages its properties through Fox Grove Management, which also manages rentals for Northside Community Housing near the Greater Ville neighbrohoods.