By ELSA BUTLER and ANTHONY VANGER

It has been a mansion, a dance hall and even a boxing gym. Soon this three-story brick building in the Bronx will take on yet another incarnation: a community center for grandparents raising their grandchildren.

Two non-profit organizations, The Lantern Group and Friends in the City, are converting the space into the centerpiece for a large low-income housing project called Cedars.

"There will be 95 units, 28 units are for homeless grandfamilies and the rest are 2-bedrooms, 1-bedrooms and studios for seniors and senior couples," said Carol Jackson, project manager for the Lantern Group.

Located at 745 Fox St. in the southwest Bronx, Cedars cost $28 million and is scheduled to open in Fall 2008. Apartments will be awarded on a lottery basis.

Providing housing to "grandfamilies," where children are raised by their grandparents instead of their parents, is a growing trend among non-profit developers and government agencies. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey, there are now more than 6.7 million children being raised in grandparent or other relative-headed families, an increase of nearly 700,000 since 2000. Pat Owens, president of GrandFamilies of America, a non-profit organization, said there are eight active grandfamily developments across the country with additional sites planned in Maryland, Indiana and Washington. The Bronx already has a large complex called the GrandParentFamily Apartments a short walk from Cedars. Christopher Brown, the educational coordinator at the center, said that every day grandparents come in looking for accommodation. The mansion was adapted to meet this growing demand.

Originally built around 1850, the Denison-White mansion stood in the middle of a 70-acre estate called Longwood Park. Charles Denison, a wealthy Manhattan merchant, built his square, three-story home to serve the needs of his large family and staff. By 1903, the mansion had been turned into a social club, complete with billiards and bowling. As the demographics of the neighborhood changed, the space continued to be used as a place where people congregated. It was a dance hall, then a police academy youth center and a boxing gym. Finally, in the late eighties, as the neighborhood became ravaged by drugs and crime, it fell into disrepair.

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