New Markets Tax Credits Fund Variety of Housing in Different Markets

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Tax Credit Advisor, October 2010: In addition to commercial real estate projects and manufacturing plants, the federal new markets tax credit has financed a wide variety of housing in diverse markets.

At the 2010 New Markets Tax Credit Symposium in California, held by the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association, participants discussed three projects involving student housing, in Columbus, Ohio; for-sale affordable homes, in neighboring Pasadena and Glendale, Calif.; and the revitalization of a mixed-use project containing older low-income housing tax credit apartments, in Seattle.

Under the NMTC program, organizations called community development entities (CDEs) compete for allocations of new markets tax credits in periodic funding rounds. CDEs that win allocation awards raise capital from investors and deploy it in eligible projects and activities in low-income communities.

Seneca Hotel

In Columbus, the federal new markets and historic tax credits helped fund the renovation and adaptive re-use of an historic 11-story former hotel into a mixed-use development containing 78 apartments targeted to students and 23,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and offices.

The Seneca Hotel building, constructed in 1917, was rehabilitated in 2006 by Philadelphia-based Campus Apartments, Inc., one of the largest student housing developers/owners in the country, said Paul Hoffman, of CityScape Capital Group, El Segunda, Calif. CityScape’s CDE provided a NMTC allocation of $2.5 million for the project. Read More…