Public Housing Portfolio

McCarty on Monroe

McCarty on Monroe, the winner of a 2010 Award of Excellence from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment officials, is a 69-unit affordable housing community for seniors 62 and over located less than a mile from downtown Phoenix. The development, sponsored by the city of Phoenix Housing Department, replaces a 24-unit low-income senior building from the 1960s.

Given the project’s close proximity to a light rail line to downtown Phoenix, as well as the high demand for senior housing in the area, increasing population density on the site was a priority for the city. As a result, the development was built as a four-story building with parking on the first floor tucked under the residences. The apartments wrap around a central courtyard, which includes a gazebo and shaded sitting areas for residents. The building meets LEED Silver standards.

NEF invested $8.8 million of LIHTC equity in the project, the first investment in Arizona since 2002. By the time the building had opened in 2009, NEF had several other Arizona projects in the pipeline.

Newport Heights IV

The plan to replace the troubled, World War II-era, barracks-style public housing at Tonomy Hill in Newport, Rhode Island, consisted of six phases. When it was announced that longtime National Equity Fund, Inc., partner, Valley Affordable Housing Corporation, would be sponsoring development of the fourth phase, consisting of 37 affordable family apartments in 16 buildings, NEF closed a deal to provide $7.8 million of LIHTC equity toward the project.

As of the closing date of that deal, the redevelopment plan, proposed by the Newport Housing Authority and called Newport Heights, had already produced 259 units of new housing on the old Tonomy Hill site – 132 public housing, 85 LIHTC, 33 Section 8-assisted and 49 market-rate units. The 37 residences constructed through Phase 4 of the redevelopment include 19 two-bedroom, 16 three-bedroom and two four-bedroom units, all LIHTC units reserved for households making no more than 60 percent of area median income.

The Newport Heights redevelopment responds to the demand for affordable housing in the area and replaces a ghostly reminder of Newport’s naval past with brightly colored, human-scale housing that evokes the upscale homes for which the city is now known. Valley Affordable Housing Corporation (VAHC) was created by the local housing authority in Cumberland, Rhode Island, in 1995. As of the closing date of Newport Heights Phase 4, VAHC had developed 300 LIHTC units, 169 of which were in the NEF portfolio.

AD Price Senior Housing

AD Price Senior Housing is the second phase of a project between Norstar Development USA and the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority (BMHA) designed to create a new affordable housing community on the site of one of the oldest public housing projects in the city of Buffalo, New York.

AD Price Courts, built in 1939, was a series of walk-up buildings set around a courtyard on a city block in Willert Park, a Buffalo eastside neighborhood. One year later, an addition called AD Price Extension opened next door. Together, the two developments provided housing for many African-American workers who had arrived in Buffalo from the South in search of work in the city's thriving industrial plants.

Like many public housing projects of its era, AD Price underwent serious deterioration throughout the years. In response, Norstar and the BMHA came up with a plan to renovate the site and surrounding city blocks with 55 new single-family homes, a three-story, 94-residence senior apartment building and 49 additional family residences. National Equity Fund, Inc. made a $9.2 million investment of LIHTC equity in the senior apartment building that features laundry rooms on each floor, a community room and kitchen, shared patio and garden areas and 51 parking spaces.

The AD Price redevelopment is the sixth LIHTC collaboration between Norstar and BMHA. That extensive track record and the project's location adjacent to the Towne Gardens shopping center, which includes a grocery store, pharmacy and bank, make this an excellent investment for NEF.

Covington Townhomes

The Covington Townhomes development, completed in 2010, is the demolition of pre-World War II Covington Homes public housing project in Texarkana Texas, and the construction of 126 new townhomes in 27 buildings on the same site.

The new community called The Oaks at RoseHill after the RoseHill neighborhood where it’s located is the second of a five-phase redevelopment effort by the Housing Authority of Texarkana Texas involving the demolition of obsolete public housing and construction of new, safe and affordable housing in its place.

The Oaks at RoseHill will offer 32 one-bedroom, 62 two-bedroom and 32 three-bedroom townhomes that will be leased to families making no more than 60 percent of the area median income. The development will offer a community building with a fitness center, business center, library and coffee bar.

The surrounding RoseHill area is an established neighborhood just west of downtown Texarkana. The townhomes' color schemes and close distance from the sidewalk help the new development blend in with the neighborhood.

CRH #3

CRH #3 is a continuation of the plan by the Charleston Kanawha Housing Authority (CKHA) to replace more than 500 units of distressed public housing using the LIHTC program. This phase of the project consists of 96 residences in 20 new construction, two-story townhouse buildings. Eighty of the residences are on the former site of Washington Manor in downtown Charleston and 16 are on the former site of Littlepage Terrace on the west end of town. Thirty-six residences are reserved for elderly tenants.

Scott Canel and Associates, an experienced developer of housing and retail, played the same development role on CRH #3 that it did with the project's earlier phases. CRH #3 is National Equity Fund’s fourth deal with Scott Canel and third with CKHA. Unlike many redevelopment plans for distressed public housing, there were no federal HOPE VI funds used for CKHA’s plan.