Affordable Housing and New Market Tax Credits

Briggs and Morgan tax attorneys serve a broad range of client needs, including federal and state tax planning, business and financial transactions, employee benefits, estate and gift tax planning, tax controversies and litigation. Our client industries include commercial banking, manufacturing, health care, public utilities, air transportation, real estate ventures, and publishing and consumer products. Among are ranks is one of Minnesota's preeminent tax lawyers, Jerome Geis.

Briggs regularly advises clients in matters such as state and local tax aspects of mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings and workouts, partnership and joint venture arrangements, debt securitizations, tax-exempt financings, charitable and non-charitable tax-exempt organizations, affordable housing, rehabilitation and tax credits.

Our firm has represented investors and lenders over the last 10 years in affordable housing projects which utilize the benefits of low-income housing tax credits allowable under Section 42 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. We have been involved in projects with development costs above $1.1 billion and have substantial experience in analyzing and negotiating over 50 such investments on behalf of corporate clients. In addition, we recently represented a corporate investor in the first affordable housing projects in the nation which have combined housing for public housing, low-income housing and market-rate housing in one development. Our team also has extensive experience in counseling clients on rehabilitation and New Market Tax Credits (NMTCs) and have been involved in a wide range of tax credit programs since first implementation. We assist clients with negotiations, drafting agreements and organizing community development entities.

Briggs has been involved with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program since its inception in 1986. Our firm has served as counsel to direct investors, syndication pools, developers, lenders and local housing redevelopment authorities in hundreds of affordable housing developments using the low-income housing tax credit and often the historic rehabilitation tax credit.

Briggs has also been involved in NMTC since its inception. In May 2002, our attorneys organized Community Development Entities (CDEs) and assisted a client in obtaining certification of these entities by the CDFI fund. Following, we assisted in the negotiation and drafting of CDE tax credit allocation agreements that received credit allocations and the CDFI Fund.

Notable Affordable Housing Representation:

• Direct investments totaling more than $100 million in over 50 affordable housing projects throughout the upper Midwest and Colorado. These investments include such innovative housing developments as Central Towers in St. Paul, the Dakotah Pioneer Building in Fargo, North Dakota, the Crown Ridge Apartments in Plymouth, Minnesota, Colfax Prairie Homes in Colfax, Wisconsin, and the Civic Center Apartments in Denver, Colorado;
• Developer's counsel for such projects as Visitation Place Apartments and St. Christopher Place in St. Paul and Fergus Falls Family Housing in Fergus Falls, Minnesota;
• Special tax credit counsel for a variety of projects in the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, such as the Heritage Park Development in St. Paul;
• Bond counsel for the financing of developments, including the Skyline Towers, Sibley Court, the Upper Landing, the Gateway Project, 808 Berry and the multi-use development of a public library and affordable housing units in St. Paul;
• Twenty million-dollar Homer G. Phillips Dignity House bond transaction involving the rehabilitation of a seven-story, 313,000-square-foot former hospital into a 220-unit affordable housing complex with related commercial space in St. Louis, Missouri. This project involved federal low-income tax credit, state low-income tax credit, and federal and state historic tax credits;
• Construction and permanent mortgage loan financing, valued at $11,275,000, for the 115-unit multifamily housing development in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, known as the Historic Teweles Seed Building Apartments;
• Ten million dollars in multifamily housing revenue bonds and a $3,194,000 construction bridge loan used to finance the construction and equipping of a multifamily affordable housing complex in Monroe, Ohio;
• Direct purchase of $24 million in multifamily housing revenue notes for the funding of construction on a 219 rental housing units in the former Sears Catalog Building in Minneapolis, which included seven additional subordinated soft funding sources;
• Direct purchase of $6.5 million in multifamily housing revenue bonds for the funding of the acquisition and rehabilitation of a 128-unit Section 8 housing project for seniors in Rockford, Illinois.

Notable New Market Tax Credit Representation:

• Represented CDE in sale of $12.6 million of tax credit eligible equity investments to regional bank;
• Closed on Phase I of a two-part qualified equity investment and loan to a Qualified Active Low-Income Community Business (QALICB) in the amount of $2.25 million;
• Closed on Phase II of qualified equity investment in the amount of $4.75 million;
• Represented CDE in connection with six qualified low-income community investments (ie. loans to low-income community businesses) in Arizona, Washington and Oregon, totaling $10.6 million.