Wolff Waters Place will include 22 buildings designed as townhomes, flats and garden apartments, each with a private outdoor patio or balcony. The project is unusual in that it targets large families, who often have the most difficult time finding affordable housing, coalition executive director John F. Mealey points out. Half the apartments have three or four bedrooms and will be offered at rents that are as much as 65% below market-rate apartments. The project will take nearly two years to be completed and is expected to obtain LEED certification for its construction and design.

The project site is in La Quinta's Redevelopment Area No. 2, at Avenue 48 and Dune Palms Road. The city's redevelopment agency sold the project site to CVHC for $1 and made $30 million to help fund the development. Additional funding comes from Citi and Wells Fargo, which invested $43 million through National Equity Fund Inc. (NEF), a nonprofit Chicago-based affiliate of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and one of the nation's largest syndicators of low-income housing tax credits. NEF syndicated the project's federal low-income housing tax credits. Rounding out the financing package are tax-exempt bonds issued by Citi as well as below-market loans from the California Department of Housing and Community Development and Riverside County Economic Development Agency.

This is NEF's 14th project with the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, notes Joe Hagan, NEF president and CEO. Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, based in Indio, CA in the Inland Empire, is a nonprofit housing development corporation that has developed more than 3,100 homes and apartments for low-income households in Riverside and Imperial counties.