JV Develops $36M FL Senior Housing

By Jeffrey Steele

Miami-based affordable housing developer Housing Trust Group (HTG) has closed on financing for construction of Douglas Gardens V in Pembroke Pines, Fla. The $36 million, 110-unit affordable senior housing community, a joint venture between HTG and Miami Jewish Health Systems, will soon break ground and provide 100 construction jobs.

Douglas Gardens V will feature one-and two-bedroom units, which will be restricted to senior renter households earning at or below 60 percent of area median income. Monthly rents will range between $405 and $953 for those whose incomes allow them to qualify.

Amenities will include a multi-purpose community room, a Wi-Fi-enabled computer lab, a private courtyard with landscaped pathways and private gardens. The community is slated to open in early 2019, and will create seven new permanent jobs.

“We were honored to be selected by our non-profit partner, Miami Jewish Health Systems, to assist them in the financing, development and leasing of another phase of development to their Pembroke Pines campus, which will serve senior residents aged 62 and above,” HTG president and CEO Matthew Rieger told MHN.

Broward County has a huge and unmet demand for more safe, clean and affordable housing and we are proud to add Douglas Gardens to our existing Broward portfolio, which includes the award-winning Village Place in downtown Fort Lauderdale.”

Financing sources

Douglas Gardens V is being financed with $13 million of construction financing from U.S. Bank, and $8.9 million of permanent financing from Barings Mass Mutual.

Also included is $8.4 million of housing credit equity (four percent) through U.S. Bancorp, and $5.8 million of competitively secured loans from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.  

“We have been working on the development of this community for over two years,” Rieger said. “Affordable housing is a very complicated business, but in this case, it was further complicated in late 2016 with talk of corporate tax reform, which diminishes both the demand and value of low-income housing tax credits, which are essential to financing affordable communities, and again in late 2017, when an initial draft of the tax reform bill called for the elimination of Private Activity Bonds, which were an essential component to the development of Douglas Gardens.”

Noteworthy contributors to the project included Richard Skelley and Jason Pincus of MJHS, Pembroke Pines City Manager Charles Dodge, and the city’s planning and economic development team members Michael Stamm, Dean Piper and Joseph Yaciuk.

One of four

“This is a true success story and a testament to our perseverance having navigated many challenges on the path to closing,” Rieger said. “HTG, and our non-profit partner MJHS, are pleased to now move forward onto what really matters most, providing much needed affordable senior housing for those most in need in our communities.”

Three other South Florida HTG-developed affordable housing communities are under construction. They are Arbor View, a senior housing community in Margate; Covenant Villas, an affordable community for families in Belle Glade; and Princeton Park, another affordable community for families in southern Miami-Dade County.