Historic Tax Credits Preserve Affordable Housing

Briarcliff Summit Apartments
Atlanta, GA

The term preservation means different things to different people. To colleagues in our firm, it can mean historic buildings, tax credits or advocacy. To many of our clients, it relates to keeping affordable apartments affordable at the end of their original financing or subsidy period. Many of these housing subsidy programs, like Section 8, have been around for decades and are managed by HUD. 

Not surprisingly, when the term of earlier subsidies end is aligned with the need for significant capital investment in the building. The owner often has to make a choice to preserve the existing affordable housing and reinvest, convert the property to market rate or owner occupied units, or to sell it to a third party. Fortunately, many current and new owners of these properties choose to preserve their affordability and they seek additional forms of financing. This often leads to incorporating state and federal historic tax credits (HTCs) as a component of their capital stack.

According to the Annual Report on the Economic Impact of the Federal Historic Tax Credit FY 2013, between 1978 and 2013 the historic tax credit program helped create over 135,000 units of affordable housing. HTC programs align well with housing preservation projects, as many of these units were created utilizing historic credits and the proposed work on the property will exceed the owner’s adjusted basis allowing for access to the historic credit again. In some cases, the buildings may have never had a historic designation when the units were developed as affordable, but are eligible for National Register listing today.  

A good example of the positive impact the historic credits can have is a recent MHA project, the Briarcliff Summit Apartments in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally constructed in 1924 as a residential hotel by Asa G. Candler Jr., the building was converted to affordable housing in the 1980s. It had fallen into significant disrepair when our client Evergreen Partners, who specialize in affordable housing and are active members of the Institute for Responsible Housing Preservation (IRHP), purchased it. Evergreen utilized a variety of sources for the project, including state and federal historic and low income housing tax credits (LIHTCs) as well financing from HUD.

“The physical needs and renovation challenges a developer encounters on a standard preservation project are always amplified when dealing with a historic structure,” says Evergreen Development Associate Nick Bouquet. “Briarcliff Summit had substantial deferred physical needs and was one of the most transformational projects Evergreen Partners has had the opportunity to participate in. The level of renovation needed to both revitalize the property and renew the building’s distinct historic features would have not been feasible without the availability of the historic tax credit resource”

The capital stack for Briarcliff included state and federal LIHTCs. Combining these with HTCs provided additional funding sources and lead to many positive design aspects for the historic building. Project architects TAT (The Architectural Team) preserved the important decorative features originally designed by architect G. Lloyd Preacher including terracotta roof tiles, iron railings and floral glazed terracotta paneling. Perhaps most importantly for the preservation of the building, the incompatible 1970s era windows were replaced with new energy efficient units that match the windows shown in historic photographs.

Briarcliff Summit Apartments is an excellent example of how state and federal HTCs can be paired with a variety of housing subsidies to create a successful community preservation project. These projects preserve the physical fabric of the neighborhood by rehabilitating important historic resource, but also preserve the social fabric of community by providing high quality affordable housing for the residents who need it the most.

We recently outlined the increase in the Georgia state historic tax credit program in a previous blog. Learn more about these changes here.

Post by Richard Sidebottom |  Senior Associate, MHA Southeast

Historic Tax Credit Programs Make States Economically Competitive

Historic Lincoln School Apartments | Shawano, WI
Completed in October 2014, this former high school was converted to a 24-unit affordable housing apartment building. 

State tax credit programs come in many shapes and sizes, but one commonality is the economic impact they have of bringing investment to historic cities throughout a state. Many of these cities have historic resources related to a period of industry that certainly once shaped the community but now sit abandoned. Repurposing these buildings is a viable and important path to reinvestment. 

Another commonality is that state historic tax credit programs are often threatened from the beginning, as there is inevitably a debate between the dollars coming in as investment versus the dollars going out as tax credits.

Just such a debate has been ongoing in Wisconsin for the past year. Governor Walker proposed to cap the state tax credit program, which was just raised to an uncapped 20% program in January 2014, while the legislature has been working to preserve it in its current form. Since the program change, just 18 months ago, 25 projects have utilized the 20% credit resulting in an estimate of $480 million in construction spending and $88.7 million in annual operations according to a study done by Baker Tilly. 

As consultants on historic rehabilitation projects, we often see immediate results on these state programs once they are signed into law. “Our Midwest Office noticed a surge in the volume of Wisconsin rehabilitation projects in 2014 and 2015 due to the new state credit, including more small and medium sized projects which may not have been viable without the added bump from the increased state credit,” notes MHA partner and Midwest director, Allen Johnson. “We are also seeing projects being undertaken in small towns and cities where previously our work was wholly in Milwaukee.”

The good news is that the Wisconsin legislature prevailed and the program will not change in the coming year.

Meanwhile another scenario is playing out in North Carolina where several tax credit programs, mostly targeted at the state’s large resource pool of historic mills, have been allowed to sunset despite showing a strong economic impact since their creation in the late ‘90s. Myrick Howard, President of Preservation North Carolina, noted in his recent op-ed piece for the News & Observer that “the revival of downtown Durham, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Asheville, Salisbury, Mount Airy, New Bern and Edenton, to name a few, hasn’t been coincidental. Nearly $2 billion have been spent by the private sector, stimulated by this statewide incentive.”

NODA Mills | Charlotte, NC

Wisconsin is fortunate to have preserved its credit and will certainly have a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting developers, especially from another state in its region, Michigan, which lost its state historic credit several years ago. Developers that are experienced in using the historic tax credit programs are expanding beyond their home states in order to take advantage of these benefits elsewhere. 

In a time of shrinking state budgets and less federal support, legislatures often look to “grow” their state budgets by eliminating historic tax credit programs despite several studies that show there is a positive return on investment from these programs. In addition to the construction dollars and jobs generated by rehabilitation projects, there is a long-term affect at the local level of taking a building that may have been completely off the tax roles and returning it to use, which generates increased real estate taxes that often funds schools or other local infrastructure. 

Hopefully North Carolina and other states will follow Wisconsin’s lead in supporting programs that can have a significant economic at the local level while knitting back together the architectural fabric that makes these cities and towns whole.

 Written by Albert Rex, Partner and Director of MHA Northeast

South Carolina Improves Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit

The Westendorff | Charleston, SC

On June 9, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed legislation that improves the state historic tax credit for rehabilitated income-producing properties and abandoned buildings. The most notable change is the new election for a 25 percent tax credit on rehabilitation costs for income-producing preservation projects.

Benefits of Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit Increase

The 25 percent tax credit is an improvement for those projects that have rehabilitation costs up to $10 million. With a project cap of $1 million, rehabilitations over $10 million should seek the uncapped 10 percent tax credit.

One provision of the legislation that remains the same is that the credit must be taken in installments starting in the year in which the property is placed in service. However, the term for those installments has been reduced from five years to three years, which is good news for investors.

The final adjustment made to this tax credit legislation enables an ownership group to assign the tax credit to another entity through a pass-through tenant structure.

Changes to Abandoned Building Rehabilitation Tax Credit

South Carolina’s Abandoned Building Tax Credit also received changes in the 2015 round of amendments that includes a new definition for a ‘state-owned abandoned building’, the inclusion of insurance premium taxes as one of the taxes against which a credit can be claimed, the reduction of the credit term from five to three years, and the removal of a limitation related to the amount a taxpayer’s tax liability may be reduced.  An additional section was added to outline the manner in which a taxpayer can receive certification of an abandoned building site.

These revisions, that were effective immediately on the governor’s signing, signify an acknowledgement by state lawmakers that the rehabilitation of historic buildings is a powerful economic development tool in historic communities across the Palmetto state.

Written by Richard Sidebottom, Senior Associate

MHA associates are well versed in state programs across the country. Contact us if you have questions about these South Carolina programs or other historic rehabilitation tax credits.