Community Development Finance

Overview

Tax credits are a powerful tool used to revitalize underserved communities—driving social impact while making projects attractive to developers and investors. But navigating these complex projects requires precision, passion, and deep industry knowledge. With decades of experience, our Community Development Finance team can help you realize your vision.

We partner with clients, including institutional investors, lenders, for-profit developers, nonprofit organizations and Fortune 100 corporations, to structure current and future tax credit transactions. From housing and new markets to historic preservation and renewable energy, no firm has a deeper bench of well-connected industry experts ready to deliver for you.

Representative experience

• Expanded health center for underserved community Represented client in expanding a health center in Far Rockaway, New York. The first phase of the development, financed primarily through a $23.5 million new markets tax credit (NMTC) allocation, includes a 40,000-square-foot, four-story health center on a one-acre site and will serve an estimated 20,000 patients per year, including the Medicaid-managed population, uninsured, and underinsured, primarily from families living within a five-mile radius. This project is expected to create 175 new jobs.
• Historic building rehabilitation for mixed-use facility Represented a community development entity (CDE) in connection with the rehabilitation of a building, in Worcester, Massachusetts, into an approximately 70,000-square-foot mixed-use facility, including affordable, transitional housing units and a variety of educational and childcare programs under the NMTC and Federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC) programs.
• Utility-scale solar portfolio Represented the investor of a tax equity investment in a 125MW utility-scale solar portfolio that includes the largest solar project in Pennsylvania, along with projects across Kansas, California, and New Mexico.
• SEED School of Los Angeles (SEED LA) Represented multiple lenders in a collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders financing the SEED LA, the first charter college-prep boarding school in California.
• Mixed-income housing development Represented client in a transaction creating "Willkommen" (German for “welcome”), a new development in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. This $51 million project includes 163 residential units in four brand new buildings and 16 revitalized historic buildings. The apartment units will be a mix of affordable and market rate. This deal combined a number of community development programs, including state and federal HTCs, NMTCs, and low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs), among other programs.
• Power facility connecting to CAISO electric grid Represented tax equity investor and acted as local counsel for the back-leverage lender of a 325MW project constructed on over 1,000 acres in California, with 20% of the power generated sold pursuant to a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) and the balance sold on the wholesale power market. The facility will interconnect to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) electric grid through an approximately 15-mile gen-tie transmission line.
• Historic public school rehabilitation Representing client in connection with a NMTC- and HTC-generating transaction, resulting in the rehabilitation of the oldest public school in Alabama. The existing structure, left vacant and in disrepair for over a decade, housed the first public school in the state. When the current rehabilitation is complete, it will house a public middle school for approximately 300 students in grades 6-9.
• Children’s Clinic in underserved area Served as lender's counsel to develop a second Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in Seattle, Washington, part of the Seattle Children’s Hospital system, financed with NMTCs. In addition to delivering health care provisions, the clinic will provide families with convenient access to community services, such as a charter high school, an economic opportunity center, a computer lab, an early learning center, affordable retail and commercial spaces for rent, community meeting spaces, and mixed-income housing for rent and ownership.

Recognition

• Nixon Peabody has been named a Tier 1 National firm for Energy Law; Real Estate Law; and Tax Law in the 2025 edition of Best Law Firms®.