Institutional Capital Backs Development of More Than 2,100 Apartments
Originally posted by Mark Heschmeyer, CoStar News
WNC, a major affordable housing investment firm, closed two institutional Low-Income Housing Tax Credit funds totaling $350 million in equity.
Equity from the funds will be used to construct and rehabilitate more than 2,100 affordable housing units across 29 properties in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Texas and West Virginia.
Some of the units are set aside for special populations for which affordable housing is in limited supply. Those set aside include for groups such as veterans, homeless or those at risk of homelessness, people with disabilities and extremely low-income households.
Irvine, California-based WNC closed WNC Institutional Tax Credit Fund 55, which raised $220 million, and WNC Institutional Tax Credit Fund 10 California Series 20, which raised $130 million.
The properties in WNC Corp 55 are projected to create about 2,600 jobs and $396 million in expected wages and tax revenue.
Properties within WNC Fund 55 include coast-to-coast coverage from Los Angeles to Boston. Notable projects within the fund include Winterset, the Prichard Hotel and Tongass Townhomes.
Originally opened in 1921, Winterset is an adaptive reuse project in Winterset, Iowa. The concrete and wood flooring and theater will be preserved, while window treatments and project repairs will help restore the historic character of the building.
The Prichard Hotel is a historic, 13-story property that opened in downtown Huntington, West Virginia, in 1925. Renovation efforts are expected to help revitalize the city’s downtown area.
Tongass Townhomes, a new 20-unit property in the popular cruise ship destination of Ketchikan, Alaska, offers housing options for veterans and the homeless.
Equity from CA 20 is earmarked to be used to construct 12 properties in California’s Fresno, Imperial, Los Angeles, Monterey, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego and Solano counties. The fund is projected to create about 2,150 jobs and nearly $329 million in expected wages and tax revenue.
Out of CA 20’s 1,340 units, 47% are located in difficult to develop areas and/or qualified census tracts and 71% are located in majority-minority tracts, a census tract in which more than 50% of the residents are identified as minority, or all groups other than white non-Hispanic.
The closure of the two latest funds brings WNC’s total equity raise since inception to about $17.2 billion.