NTCIC's $60 Million NMTC Allocation Brings Investment to Gulf Coast
Washington, DC, October, 2007 - The National Trust Community Investment Corporation learned today that its application to the U.S. Treasury for a 2007 allocation of New Markets Tax Credits was successful. NTCIC will receive a $60 million allocation specifically for the recovery and redevelopment of the Hurricane Katrina Gulf Opportunity Zone (GO Zone) which consists of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
NTCIC’s 2007 award, the largest among all eleven GO Zone allocates, raises the total amount of New Markets Tax Credits allocated to NTCIC since the inception of the tax credit program in 2000 to $240 million. NTCIC’s track record is commendable considering the competitiveness of the allocation award process: only 24% of applicants to the 2007 round received awards.
NTCIC’s signature product is the twinning of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) with the federal historic tax credit. The addition of New Markets Tax Credit equity is often the key piece of financing that makes historic rehabilitation projects feasible. By bringing this tax credit equity to historic real estate projects that must conform to the Secretary’s Standards for Rehabilitation, NTCIC will help preserve important parts of the Gulf Coast’s historic fabric, especially in those areas hit hardest by the 2006 hurricanes: low-income communities. NTCIC’s work expands upon the ongoing Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts supported by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, NTCIC’s parent organization.
Since its inception in 2000, NTCIC has invested $167 million in net equity in projects with cumulative total development costs of over $700 million. These projects have sustained 4,300 construction jobs and 7,500 permanent jobs. The Fox Oakland Theatre in Oakland, CA is one such project that has benefited from an equity investment by NTCIC. NTCIC invested $13 million in combined federal historic and New Markets Tax Credit equity in the $70 million rehabilitation of the former Fox Theater into a new home for a charter school for the performing arts, a community theatre and facility space. Strongly supported by the community and state and local governments, this public-private partnership will result in the creation of 394 construction jobs and 1,372 permanent jobs, as well as a state-of-the-art school building offering expanded programs at no cost to economically disadvantaged high school students that demonstrate promise in artistic and academic scholarship. The new Fox Oakland will also be an important catalyst to attract additional private reinvestment to this underserved area of Oakland’s central business district.
The NMTC Program attracts private-sector capital investment to the nation’s urban and rural low-income areas to help finance community development projects, stimulate economic growth and create jobs. In the five rounds to date, 294 awards have been made, totaling $16 billion in tax credit authority.
Read more about the New Markets Tax Credit's role in Gulf Coast Recovery