Campus Partners selected to receive $35 million in new markets tax credits

Campus Partners will receive $35 million in tax credit allocations under the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program for construction of the University Gateway Center. U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow announced the allocation today in Columbus as part of a national announcement of the organizations selected to receive the first $2.5 billion in tax credit allocations under the NMTC program.

Campus Partners is one of three central Ohio organizations to receive an allocation. The purpose of the program is to stimulate investment, growth and job creation in low-income communities. Senator George Voinovich and Governor Bob Taft were also in attendance for the announcement.

“The tax credit allocation will be an extremely valuable source of financing for the University Gateway Center,” said Terry Foegler, Campus Partners president. “It will provide us with greater flexibility in achieving the broader goals of this project – improving the quality of life and revitalizing the University District area.”

The NMTC program provides tax credits to investors who make “qualified equity investment” in privately managed investment vehicles called “community development entities” or CDEs. The tax credit, to be claimed over seven years, totals 39 percent of the investment in a CDE. CDEs are required to invest the proceeds of the qualified equity investments in low-income communities.

In preparation for applying for NMTC, Campus Partners in 2002 formed University District Community Development Entity LCC and obtained certification of it as a CDE.

The Gateway project, a 500,000-square-foot, mixed-use, urban redevelopment project, will be constructed on approximately seven acres around High Street and 11th Avenue. The location is in the Weinland Park neighborhood and south of the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.

According to the 1990 census, 59 percent of residents in this neighborhood have incomes below poverty level and earned less than 30 percent of the metropolitan area’s median income. The Gateway site is in the federally designated Columbus Empowerment Zone. The site is also part of a Small Business Administration-designated HUB zone, or Historically Underutilized Business zone.

Ohio State created Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment in 1995 to spearhead the revitalization of the urban neighborhoods around its Columbus campus. Campus Partners was incorporated as a non-profit organization to work with the city, community agencies, neighborhood leaders and the university itself to identify and make neighborhood improvements.