New York-based commercial real estate finance company
NewPoint Real Estate Capital announced that it is providing $20.6 million in tax-exempt bond financing for Michigan Street Commons, the 99-unit affordable housing development that is part of the $160 million, 11-acre mixed-use
Iron District project in downtown Milwaukee.
Construction work is underway for the $27.5 million Michigan Street Commons building, which is being developed by Kenosha-based
Bear Development. Bear is working with Grafton-based
Kacmarcik Enterprises on the Iron District development, located northeast of the Marquette Interchange, which also includes plans for an 8,000-seat professional soccer stadium, a hotel, an indoor concert venue, retail space and restaurants.
Bear assembled financing for the Michigan Street Commons building from multiple sources, including $1.8 million in tax incremental financing from the city of Milwaukee.
NewPoint Real Estate Capital’s financing for the project is structured as 4% tax-exempt bond financing. Three series of bonds for the project were issued by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. Raymond James is the low-income housing tax credit equity syndicator.
The five-story Michigan Street Commons building will be located at the southwest corner of West Michigan and North 10
th streets. It will contain 48 one-bedroom, one-bath units, and 51 two-bedroom, two-bath units. Approximately 30% of the units will be affordable at 50% of area median income (AMI), 40% will be affordable at 60% AMI, and the remaining 30% will be affordable at 70% AMI.
“NewPoint is incredibly proud to again partner with Bear Real Estate Group on what represents the first step in the transformational redevelopment of an underutilized corridor in downtown Milwaukee,” said Cesar Diaz, managing director with NewPoint, who originated the loan for the Michigan Street Commons project. “There is nothing easy about kicking off new construction in today’s market. It takes collaboration and coordination from a group of parties committed to expanding affordable housing supply, and that is exactly what we had here.”
“While there was a high level of backing for this project from the state and local government, getting all the puzzle pieces in place on a timeline that supports the developer is a demanding task,” said Rob Wrzosek, president – affordable strategies at NewPoint. “Yet once again, NewPoint Impact worked as designed to bring unmatched speed, value and creativity to this complicated process.”
Bear Development and Kacmarcik Enterprises are continuing to work on assembling financing for the other components of the Iron District project.
Gov. Tony Evers recently proposed using $9.3 million in state funds for the $45 million soccer stadium component of the Iron District.
