Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

While I often talk about public policy, one of my primary tasks as Executive Director of NH&RA is to identify new business opportunities for our members. Sometimes these opportunities manifest themselves in new programs enacted by Congress, innovative financing structures, or inefficiencies in the capital markets.

The Mayo 420 Building, a new mixed-used development in downtown Tulsa, Okla., is truly a place where people can live, work, eat – and exercise. The $34.5 million project, funded in part by federal new markets tax credits, contains 67 market-rate apartments, offices, a YMCA, and a restaurant in an historic 10-story building. Wiggin Properties, LLC completed construction in 2010 and achieved full lease-up by August 2011, says company President Chuck Wiggin.

For developer Pioneer Group, Inc., a set of 38 leased historic buildings on the medical campus of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in Leavenworth, Kansas is the gift that keeps on giving. The company is currently developing its third real estate project from the structures.

U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has asked the National Park Service to conduct an internal review of the 20% federal historic rehabilitation tax credit program and report its findings to him by March 1, a step that has sparked positive reactions from some program participants.

The successful operation and performance of a low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) project requires choosing the right property management company.

Skilled and vigilant management should keep a property at a healthy occupancy level, assure that it performs well physically and financially, and put investors in a good position to receive the full amount of projected tax benefits.

Your affordable multifamily housing acquisition/ rehab project begins with a vision of an efficient and comfortable building at completion. But after lease-up will you actually achieve the expected high performance in energy and water efficiency designed into the project, and therefore peak financial performance?

General contractors and consultants offer some simple suggestions to developers and owners thinking of retrofitting their existing affordable multifamily rental housing properties to increase energy and water efficiency and thereby reduce utility bills.

America has a sparkling new mecca for jazz performance and education: the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco. Sponsored by local nonprofit SFJAZZ and funded largely by federal new markets tax credits, the new $64 million building has quickly become a major attraction for jazz musicians, aficionados, and tourists since the ribbon-cutting on Martin Luther King’s Day.

National Housing & Rehabilitation Association members have a reputation as the most innovative minds in affordable housing, historic preservation, and community development finance. I am constantly impressed by the creative strategies and structures that they use to combine and leverage a myriad of federal, state, and local grant, loan, and tax credit programs to finance their projects.

For years, affordable housing has been at a premium in the City of Fairfax, Va., a high-cost bedroom community of Washington, D.C. Northern Virginia has long seen numerous affordable apartments converted to market-rate apartments or condominiums.

A January 9 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has some tax credit industry participants worried about the use of put options in transactions utilizing federal historic rehabilitation and new markets tax credits. The ruling held that a tax shelter transaction did not have substance due to the “reasonable likelihood” […]

At Castle Square Apartments, a 40-year-old HUD-assisted apartment complex in Boston, WinnDevelopment, in partnership with the tenants association, completed a “deep energy retrofit” that has slashed energy and water usage and drastically cut operating costs and utility bills paid by the owner and tenants. (A deep retrofit is an upgrade reducing prior energy usage by more than 50%.)