Dealmaker: Walker & Dunlop Structures $120M For Manhattan Affordable Housing

(Thurgood Marshall Plaza illustration. Credit: New York City Housing Authority.)

Walker & Dunlop, Bethesda, Md., structured $120 million in Freddie Mac financing to rehabilitate a 557-unit, three-building portfolio in Harlem, N.Y.

The financing represented a joint effort between Dantes Partners, Washington, D.C., The New York City Housing Authority and the New York Housing Development Corp., New York, Freddie Mac, McLean, Va., JP Morgan Chase, New York, and Walker & Dunlop.

Three properties built between 1962 and 1985, Audubon Houses, Bethune Gardens and Thurgood Marshall Plaza, received the financing.

Walker & Dunlop Managing Director John Gilmore led the production team that arranged the financing execution, which addressed the unique capital and ongoing operation and maintenance needs of the three properties.

To transform the properties, Dantes Partners obtained a 99-year ground lease from NYCHA through the authority’s Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, which leverages HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program. Additionally, 555 of the 557 total units are supported by project-based rental assistance from HUD’s RAD and Section 18 programs and long-term project-based Housing Assistance Program contracts.

NYCHA and Dantes Partners will invest more than $200,000 per unit to revitalize and renovate the buildings. Renovations will include new kitchens, bathrooms, windows, appliances and flooring as well as upgrades to the buildings elevators and heating and cooling systems.

“Capital is one leg of the stool to make complex transactions such as ABM (Audubon Houses, Bethune Gardens and Marshall Plaza) a reality,” said Corey Powell, Chief Operating Officer at Dantes. “Walker & Dunlop and Freddie Mac worked through those to ensure that a 100% Black-owned team was able to secure the necessary resources to help us deliver on our promises to the residents of ABM.”