$130M in bond financing for Bay Area affordable multifamily projects

Pacific West Communities plans nearly 200-unit senior complex in Oakland, 85 units complex in Milpitas

The Pacific Companies' Caleb Roope (The Pacific Companies, iStock)
The Pacific Companies' Caleb Roope (The Pacific Companies, iStock)

An Idaho developer has scored $130 million in financing for nearly 280 units of affordable housing spread over separate projects in the East Bay and Silicon Valley.

Pacific West Communities received $70 million in tax-exempt bond financing from the California Municipal Finance Authority for 4311-4317 MacArthur Blvd., in Oakland, and another $60 million for 308 Sango Court, in Milpitas, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The financing allows both projects to break ground within the next three months, according to Alexis Gevorgian, principal at Santa Clarita-based AMG & Associates, which worked with Pacific to entitle, or finance, both projects. The cost of development was not disclosed

The MacArthur and Sango developments have also secured tax-credit financing, another critical source of funding for affordable housing projects, on top of the CMFA funding.

The MacArthur Studios, a five-story senior housing complex of 193 studio apartments in Oakland, would be affordable to residents making between 50 percent to 80 percent of area median income.

The 308 Sango project, a six-story complex of 85 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in Silicon Valley, would include 67 affordable units for residents making between 30 percent and 60 percent of area median income. Seventeen of the apartments would be market-rate, while one would be a manager’s unit.

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The two projects would together yield 278 units, 258 of which would be preserved as affordable housing for the next 55 years.

Assembling financing packages for affordable housing projects can be competitive. Developers must vie for limited quantities of financing from local, state and federal sources.

Pacific West Communities, a division of The Pacific Companies, has developed multifamily or senior housing in a dozen western states, according to its website. The Pacific Companies, founded in 1998, has completed more than 160 multifamily and charter school projects across the West.

It struck a deal last year with KT Urban to develop 48 rental units for low-income seniors in Cupertino.

[San Francisco Business Times] – Dana Bartholomew

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