LOS ANGELES-Canyon Capital Realty Advisors and Andre Agassi Ventures have formed a fund to develop 75 or more charter school buildings in the US in projects with an estimated value of $500 million. The new JV is called the Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund and is designed "to promote the success and growth of best-in-class charter schools in urban communities across the US," according to an announcement by the partners.

The fund is designed to create new seats for approximately 40,000 students over the next three to four years by constructing new facilities or retrofitting existing properties. The first campus, located in North Philadelphia’s Allegheny West community, is scheduled to open in August for students in K through fourth grade at KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy.

The partners say their fund "has the backing of a world-class group of institutional investors," including Citigroup, Intel Capital and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In addition to providing facilities, the fund will offer the operators with the opportunity to buy their schools once they have reached full occupancy. To this end, CACSFF will help charter school operators obtain permanent financing to purchase their properties using New Market Tax Credits, tax-exempt bond offerings or funding from the US Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

Andrew Agassi and Bobby Turner, chairman and CEO of Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, are CACSFF co-managing partners. Overseeing the day-to-day operation of CACSFF is Glenn Pierce, the former CEO and president of Pacific Charter School Development. Agassi is founder of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, founded in 2001, which is a K-12 college preparatory academy for more than 600 underprivileged students in Las Vegas, which has been named a National Model Charter School by the US Department of Education.