Union Funds Boston Affordable MF with $116M

BOSTON-The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust said Wednesday it's putting $116 million of pension capital funding to preserve Beacon Communities' Georgetowne Homes One and Two multifamily development in the Hyde Park neighborhood here as affordable housing. The funding will help keep the 967-unit complex in the federal government's Section 8 program and also allow for energy-efficiency retrofits.

HIT financing includes $70.4 million for the 601-unit Georgetowne Homes One, originally built in 1969, and $45.5 million for the 366-unit Georgetowne Homes Two, which dates from 1972.? Seventy percent of the units are in the Section 8 program; all are income restricted, and the HIT financing will keep the complex affordable through 2058 via a deed restriction.

“It is particularly gratifying to work on the increasingly important long-term preservation of housing, specifically Georgetowne Homes because it is the largest and most important preservation effort currently under way in the City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a whole,” says Tom O'Malley, who leads the HIT's New England office, in a release. “Decent affordable housing, family-supporting jobs and community revitalization—that's a pretty good return on any investment.”

To help put together financing for Georgetowne Homes, the HIT purchased construction and permanent tax-exempt bonds and construction loan notes issued by MassHousing, the commonwealth's affordable housing bank.  Other financing sources include federal and state Low Income Housing Tax Credits, along with other state and local subsidized debt.?

Headquartered in Boston, Beacon develops and operates apartment complexes across Massachusetts as well as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Georgetowne Homes is its largest complex, spread across 66 acres.