Major NoMa Project Lands $47M Financing Package For First Phase Of Construction
The team behind the Northwest One project in NoMa has closed a financing deal for the first phase of the 750-unit development.
The D.C. Housing Finance Agency announced Monday it closed on a $47M financing deal with the development team for a 220-unit, mixed-income apartment building at North Capitol Street and K Street NW.
The development team of MRP Realty, CSG Urban Partners and Taylor Adams Associates was selected in 2017 following a competitive process that included several other local developers. SK+I Architecture is designing the project.
The 3.5-acre site, formerly the Temple Courts public housing community, has been planned for redevelopment since 2004 as part of D.C.'s New Communities Initiative.
The District demolished the public housing buildings in 2008 and provided vouchers for the residents to relocate. Some of the former residents were able to return to nearby project The Severna on K Street, which delivered in two phases in 2011 and 2014, while others are still waiting to move into the Northwest One project, WAMU reported last year.
The $80.6M first phase of the project is being financed through multiple vehicles. DCHFA issued $29.9M in tax-exempt bond financing and underwrote $17.4M in 4% low-income housing tax credits. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development also provided a $13.8M loan.
The development team has not announced how the remaining portion of the project would be financed or when it plans to break ground. MRP Realty declined to comment.
“Investing in a transformative project such as Northwest One is in direct correlation with the Agency’s mission of providing sources of capital to finance affordable rental housing in all areas of the District, including highly amenitized, sought after neighborhoods like NoMa,” DCHFA Interim Executive Director Christopher Donald said in a release.
The Washington Interfaith Network, which has worked with the former Temple Courts tenants to push for new housing on the site, said it looks forward to the project breaking ground.
"When completed this could be a model of a mixed income development, with market, middle income and hundreds of units of deeply affordable housing," WIN co-Chair Rev. Michael Wilker wrote in an emailed statement to Bisnow. "We organized and pray for the day that former Temple Courts residents can finally come home to this corner of North Capitol and K NW.”
The project's first phase will consist of 77 units for residents earning up to 30% of the area median income, 73 units for residents making up to 60% AMI, and 70 market-rate units. The units will reach as large as four bedrooms, and some will have balconies and walk-in closets.
The five-story building will also include an outdoor courtyard and an 83-space parking garage. It is the first of three phases that are ultimately planned to include 750 multifamily units.
The development is one of several projects planned around North Capitol Street on the western edge of the NoMa neighborhood. One block north of the site, Toll Brothers is planning to build over 1,100 units on the former site of the Sursum Corda housing community. At the intersection of North Capitol Street and Patterson Street NE, Monument Realty is planning a two-part project totaling nearly 900 units.
UPDATE, OCT. 19, 3:55 P.M. ET: This story has been updated to include comment from the Washington Interfaith Network.
