News
MULTIFAMILY MONDAY: SWAP O’ RAMA
June 21, 2010
| One of the nation's largest non-profit urban housing developers, The Community Builders, lost 40% of its financing with Fannie and Freddie. But good relationships with other lenders and investor interest in multifamily have filled TCB?s pipeline with 20 projects in the Northeast, Mid Atlantic, and Midwest: new construction, preservation, and recapitalization. |
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| We snapped Christine Vasta, Johanna Smith, Felicia Jacques,Doug Tierney, and Jeff Beam reviewing a plan for TCB?s largest project right now, the $200M, 340-unit Charlesview. The new six-acre community in Allston near HBS will have 240 rental apartments, 100 for-sale condos and townhouses, underground parking for 350 cars, a public community center, park, new streetscapes, and infrastructure. In 2003, Felicia started negotiating a land swap with Harvard for much of its old Brighton Mills shopping center site (a few blocks away) in exchange for a site adjacent to its campus, where the 213-unit federally subsidized Charlesview apartments has stood for 40 years. Three years of construction is set to start this fall. |
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| Leading a project near Franklin Park: Sue Boyle, Mecky Adnani,Jim Perrine, Michael Gray, Andrew Gross, and Noah Sawyer are renovating 220 apartments in 15 buildings across Roxbury and Dorchester. TCB recapitalilzed the property with new debt and equity, including low income housing tax credits and a loan from the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency. Mecky says that as one of TCB?s ?preservation? projects, it aims to preserve the buildings and the units? affordability for low income residents. With tenants staying in their apartments, TCB started in April to rehab interiors and exteriors. Homeless families will get up to 25% of the apartments. |
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| Don't pity Tom Buonopane, Karen Kelleher, and Willie Jones (no matter how long we made them hold this pose): They get to spend $78.6M in Neighborhood Stabilization Program II funds recently awarded to TCB through the stimulus package. To help stem the rising tide of distress caused by foreclosures on MF buildings, Willie says they'll use the money to re-capitalize properties, assuring that cash flow will cover expenses. He expects to keep about 1,300 units affordable for lower income people in Massachusetts, New York, DC, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. In August, TCB will tackle a 32-unit development in Wareham where future state subsidies won't match the rate of inflation, possibly leading to elimination of its affordable stock. As for investors like JP Morgan Chase and Aegon and their appreciation for MF, Willie says ?It's good to see rental come back.? |
