Enterprise Uses NMTC Allocations from CDFI in Low-Income Communities

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorColumbia, Md.–Enterprise Community Investment has utilized all $515 million of its New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocations from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI) to help finance real estate projects and business opportunities in low-income communities across the country. As one of the largest recipients in the NMTC program, Enterprise has used its five rounds of allocations to catalyze more than $3 billion in commercial and mixed-use development. These projects are in urban centers and rural communities in 18 states and Washington, D.C., resulting in six million sq. ft of new or rehabilitated real estate, 10,000 permanent jobs and more than 3,500 housing units. “Our 2008 New Markets Tax Credit allocation was used to finance nine developments, seven of which are environmentally sustainable and extend our Green Communities affordable housing initiative into commercial and mixed-use properties in low-income communities,” says Joe Wesolowski, senior vice president, Structured Finance, Enterprise Community Investment.In 2008 Enterprise’s NMTC made a $9.4 million investment in Miller’s Court in Baltimore, Md., which will help redevelop a former tin box manufacturing plant into affordable housing targeted toward new teachers, retail space and offices for nonprofit organizations focused on education. “Only because of New Market Tax Credits were we able to move Miller’s Court forward,” says Thibault Manekin, founding partner, Seawall Development Co. “As a result, more than half of the apartments have been committed to by teachers at the city school system and 90 percent of the office space has been pre-leased to the nonprofits that are underpinning the success of the school system and health and human service needs of Baltimore’s residents