BWE, a national commercial and multifamily mortgage banking company, announced the closing of three financings totaling $47,127,000 to preserve, build, and provide permanent financing for two affordable multifamily housing properties and one manufactured/mobile housing community, West Holden Place, Columbine Towers, and Montevista Communidad, across the city of Denver, Colorado.
The BWE Denver affordable team, led by senior vice president Anthea Martin and assistant vice president Spencer Bollacker, originated the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loans on behalf of the borrowers. Ghazy Grijalva, a BWE vice president specializing in manufactured housing, assisted on the manufactured/mobile housing deal.
For the first property, Columbine Towers, located at 1750 South Federal Boulevard, the Denver affordable team arranged a $27,721,000 Freddie Mac Targeted Affordable Housing loan on behalf of Ulysses Development Group (UDG)—a Denver-based mission-driven developer and owner of affordable and workforce housing—to preserve and renovate the 100% income restricted, 170-unit, Section 8 high-rise housing development.
Given the limited resources available for preserving aging affordable housing, the team combined a creative capital stack with support from HUD, the City and County of Denver through the Department of Housing Stability, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, and Impact Development Fund.
BWE arranged a forward commitment of permanent financing for the second property, West Holden Place, a 77-unit mid-rise modular apartment building to be located at 2639 West Holden Place, on behalf of Adam Berger Development, a mission-driven developer specializing in modular affordable and workforce housing.
The affordable team originated a $13,230,000 Freddie Mac Targeted Affordable Housing loan for the new construction of the six-story building, which will include a mix of one- and two-bedroom units as well as common areas such as an exercise room, mail and package room, meeting room, restrooms, bike room, roof deck, elevator, stairwell, and lobby. The building’s parking lot will feature 58 spaces, 15 of which are marked for carsharing with three cars available at the property 24/7 through the Getaround mobile app.
“In this interest-rate environment, in order to complete the financings of West Holden Place, Columbine Towers, and Montevista, we had to get creative to preserve and create more homes for vulnerable populations. By leveraging government funding, nonprofit assistance, and agency loans, we were able to build creative capital stacks for Columbine Towers, West Holden Place, and Montevista that will allow the borrowers to create and protect housing for hundreds of lower-income Denverites,” said Martin. “These deals show that with enough grit and creativity, we can overcome the limitations of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and continue to create the homes we need to end the affordable housing crisis.”
Finally, a multi-office team of producers secured a preservation deal for the Montevista Communidad (formerly the Capital City Mobile Home Park), a manufactured/mobile home community in southwestern Denver. The BWE team originated acquisition financing in the form of a five-year, fixed-rate $6,176,000 Fannie Mae loan with three years of interest-only payments and secured by a first lien.
“BWE’s affordable, conventional, and manufactured housing teams were proud to come together and assist SCI and the Montevista residents in finding an ideal financing solution for this community, and it was truly a group effort to get it done,” said Grijalva. “It’s a rarity that a local nonprofit and residents can come together to create a strategy that will ultimately leave the community in residents’ hands, and special thanks is owed to the City of Denver’s Department of Housing Stability, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Impact Development Fund, Seed Commons, and the Denver Foundation for issuing subordinate loans totaling $5.85 million to SCI to make this possible.”
