Practices

Housing

With more than 40 attorneys across multiple offices, we provide innovative and practical advice in the development and financing of housing and community development projects nationwide.

Our housing and community development experience includes representation of more than 125 housing authorities, the closing of hundreds of bond transactions as bond and underwriter’s counsel, and involvement in thousands of tax-credit transactions. We routinely represent borrowers and more than a dozen approved lenders under all multifamily programs of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Affordable Housing in Chinatown, Los Angeles: How To Better Serve Your Community

Listen Here

Experience

We have been involved in nearly every type of housing transaction. Representative matters include:

We assisted in the restructuring and refinancing of eight Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loans in excess of $91 million for a senior housing and post-acute care provider.
We advised regional senior housing developer and operator in six new and expansion projects in Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Florida.
We have assisted numerous developers in strategic planning and negotiation of the purchase, financing, construction, and/or renovations of nearly 1,400 market rate and affordable apartment, senior housing, and single family homes across Minnesota and the Midwest.

We serve as counsel on the land registration for a mixed use housing project adjacent to the new U.S. Bank (Minnesota Vikings) Stadium.
We represent a national senior housing provider in $91 million restructuring and refinancing of multiple Minnesota properties.
We represented the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) in a six-month race to close one of the largest public-private partnership tax credit bond deals in U.S. history. The transaction provided approximately $400 million in initial public and private funding to modernize more than 20,000 public housing units and $65 million to $75 million a year for operations. Seeking to gain federal funding for the housing, we found a little-known provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The Puerto Rico Public Housing Administration worked with Ballard Spahr's Housing Group to close the largest-ever low-income tax credit transaction, which was valued at more than $600 million and which paved the way for the modernization of thousands of units of public housing and earned "Deal of the Year" recognition from The Bond Buyer.
We closed the first Energy Performance Contract financing in the nation, structured in conjunction with acquisition and rehabilitation tax credits and garnering $1.4 million in additional tax credit equity for the Denver Housing Authority.
When the Municipal Housing Authority for the City of Yonkers, New York, was given just eight weeks to close on the first phase of a $20 million housing project funded by a HOPE VI Revitalization Grant or lose funding, they turned to us. We overcame a host of financing and tax challenges to meet the deadline and secure the grant for our client.
After successfully implementing a complete HOPE VI revitalization of the former Columbia Villa public housing site, the Housing Authority of Portland (HAP) set its sights on building a school and other facilities. We assisted HAP in developing the structure, analyzed the tax ramifications, formed a new nonprofit corporation as the qualified active low-income community business (QALICB) for New Markets Tax Credits, prepared the application for 501(c)(3) status, reviewed lease and option agreements, and prepared loan documents.
We assisted Freddie Mac in completing one of the largest multifamily housing bond securitizations in history, a $2.8 billion transaction with Centerline Capital Group using the innovative Freddie Mac Tax-Exempt Bond Securitization (TEBS) execution, which we helped develop.