301 N. Jefferson Davis Pkwy; New Orleans, LA
Mercy Hospital New Orleans was founded in 1924 and relocated to the Mid-City neighborhood in 1953 (pictured above is the original main facade of the 1953 hospital building). For over fifty years this facility was a principal institutional actor and employment center within both the Museum-City Park Cultural District and the Mid-City National Register Historic District.
Subsequent to the Katrina-induced levee failures in 2005, Tenet Healthcare – which had been operating the facility as Lindy Boggs Medical Center – opted not to reopen it.
In 2007, a demolition permit was secured by the hospital’s new owners; however, their plans for a mixed-use town center stalled. Three years later, in May of 2010, Crescent Growth Capital arranged an NMTC financing on behalf of St. Margaret’s Daughters Home to purchase the entire blighted, abandoned facility.
The redevelopment of the former Mercy Hospital/Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans by St. Margaret’s Daughters Home is a multi-phase project whose first manifestation will be the adaptive re-use of the hospital’s medical office buildings to accommodate a new permanent nursing home facility for St. Margaret’s.
Crescent Growth Capital structured and closed a $21.3 million New Markets Tax Credit qualified equity investment to fund both St. Margaret’s acquisition of the entire former hospital and a portion of the construction cost of its new nursing home within the facility. Subsequent phases will rehabilitate the remainder of the former Mercy facility for medical uses.
In addition to structuring the initial financial closing in 2010, Crescent Growth Capital, in conjunction with its consultants, secured Louisiana State Historic Tax Credit eligibility for the entire former Mercy/Lindy Boggs complex, garnering millions in historic tax credit equity for the project. The first state historic tax credit financing for the project was accomplished in September of 2011, generating $4 million for St. Margaret’s and enabling the definitive start of construction on Phase I.
CGC, in conjunction with its consultants, also secured for St. Margaret’s $3 million in CDBG funding, in the wake of a successful application to the State of Louisiana’s Project-Based Recovery Opportunity Program (“PROP”). Financial closing on these funds was achieved in July of 2011.
