The final piece fell into place last week when the AustinHousing Finance Corp. closed the sale of $11.7 million in bonds tofinance the project. The Private Activity Volume Cap and TaxableRevenue bonds provide interim construction and permanent financing.They are repayable only from rents generated by the apartmentcomplex.

Riverside Meadows zipped through the city of Austin's buildingpermit process in 29 days because it was certified as a SMARTHousing project. The project's developer Austin-based RealtexDevelopment Corp. worked with city departments to move the permitsquickly. In doing so, the project closed by the deadline set by theState Bond Allocation.

The city's SMART Housing project encourages building indesignated areas such as Southeast Austin. SMART is an acronym forSafe, Mixed-Income, Accessible, Reasonably-Priced,Transit-Oriented.