Crescent Growth Capital, LLC

Structuring project financing to incorporate tax credit equity.

New Orleans

St. Margaret’s pushes for 2012 opening of nursing home within former Mercy Hospital

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The Times-Picayune, February 8, 2011

In the next 60 days, contractors for St. Margaret’s Daughters, a Catholic church-affiliated nonprofit health-care provider, are scheduled to begin limited demolition work as part of the redevelopment of the old Lindy Boggs Medical Center in Mid-City.

The first phase of the redevelopment is a nursing facility projected to open in the summer of 2012, several months later than the target announced in April 2010 when St. Margaret’s bought the property on the corner of Bienville Street and North Jefferson Davis Parkway.

Jason Hemel, St. Margaret’s vice president for development, confirmed that his organization is in talks with a hospital operator about the yet-undetailed second phase: a small hospital. Addressing the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization this week, Hemel did not disclose the potential operator or the specifics of what kind of hospital or surgical center St. Margaret’s has in mind. He referred mostly to a “specialty hospital” and mentioned “30 to 50 beds,” but he did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a full-service hospital.

It is questionable how a full-service hospital in Mid-City would fit into a hospital market where existing hospitals like Tulane Medical Center and Touro Infirmary, to say nothing of the hundreds of additional beds that would come online with the completion of the planned University Medical Center and an eastern New Orleans hospital on the old Methodist Hospital campus.

Specialty hospitals that target customers for specific, often out-patient procedures – orthopedics, heart catheterizations – are increasingly commonplace in the U.S. health care system.

“In about six to eight months, we should have some more things to announce,” Hemel said.

St. Margaret’s executives have said that the end product would include physician offices, clinic spaces, rehabilitation services and a small surgical hospital, a complex modeled after the organization’s St. Luke’s Medical Center and St. Luke’s Living Center that opened last year in Algiers.

Hemel said St. Margaret’s also is considering a wellness center and is in discussions with a day-care provider for a facility that could serve employees and surrounding community members. “We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like,” he said.

The demolition work will take about 45 to 60 days as architects finish the final plans for the new nursing home facilities will occupy about 100,000 square feet of what had been medical office buildings at Lindy Boggs. The entire complex is about 300,000 square feet.

Though plans are not final, Hemel said the concept envisions apartment-style rooms clustered in “neighborhoods,” rather than traditional long hallways with single and double rooms on each side. Plans call for 12 neighborhoods each with nine rooms. Each room will have its own kitchen, laundry and dining area.

“We’re trying to make it much more like being in your own home,” Hemel said, adding that St. Margaret’s executives have traveled extensively to see the same model in other cities.

The Lindy Boggs Medical Center, run by for-profit Tenet Healthcare Corp., suffered extensive flood damage from Hurricane Katrina and its levee breaches. The hospital never reopened after the flood.

Tenet sold the property to Victory Real Estate Investments, a Georgia firm that amassed several Mid-City properties with the intention of developing a Bienville retail corridor. That idea never materialized. Public records show that St. Margaret’s acquired the Lindy Boggs complex for $4.2 million.

St. Margaret’s Daughters, constituted in 1889, has been providing institutional health care since it opened a facility in the Holy Cross neighborhood in 1931. The agency’s Lower 9th Ward nursing home flooded during Katrina and has since reopened at 3419 St. Claude Avenue.

Lakeview Grocery opening caps Harrison Avenue’s post-Katrina renaissance

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The Times-Picayune, November 22, 2010

The recently opened Lakeview Grocery on Harrison Ave. has cemented that street as Lakeview’s commercial center, marking a huge milestone in the neighborhood’s post-Hurricane Katrina development. 

A venture of Robért Resources LLC, the entity that also operates Robért Fresh Markets, the store opened in October and occupies the former site of Lakeview Fine Foods, which had been vacant for five years.

Father Mike O’Rourke sat at a window table at NOLA Beans on Harrison Avenue in Lakeview, having just celebrated Mass across the street at St. Dominic. He sipped coffee and enjoyed muffins even as parishioners were departing the 8 a.m. service and others were arriving for the next.

O’Rourke said there is no doubt in his mind that Harrison Avenue is back as the neighborhood commercial center.

“We have almost everything we need here now,” he said. “But having the grocery store open, that’s big.”

According to Lakeview Civic Improvement Association President Glenn Stoudt, the new grocery store is an essential building block for neighborhood recovery.

“Having a grocery store open again on Harrison Avenue is of course practical and convenient,” Stoudt said.  “But it’s also an emotional touchstone, part of a community that defines and clarifies it, where you see your neighbors and friends and it’s all OK, once again.”

It wasn’t clear after Hurricane Katrina that things would ever be OK again.  But the Harrison Avenue commercial stretch between Canal Boulevard and Orleans Avenue has been steadily rising from the devastation of Katrina-related flooding, anchored by St. Dominic Catholic church and St. Paul’s Episcopal at the corner of Canal.  Since then, a string of commercial enterprises reopened, led by banks and followed by restaurants including Reginelli’s, Lakeview Deli, the Steak Knife, Lakeview Harbor and Mondo, Susan Spicer’s new restaurant that opened a few months ago.

Taking the place of Magic Laundry and Cleaners is NOLA Beans, a locally owned and operated cafe and restaurant that complements the Seattle-based Starbucks franchise a block away.  Lakeview Veterinary Hospital occupies a facility just off Harrison on Memphis, Little Miss Muffin offers retail opportunities and Rite Aid provides a pharmacy and serves additional shopping needs.  Need a neighborhood cleaners?  There’s Young’s.

With a new public library under construction at Harrison and Canal and the Edward Hynes Charter School under construction at Harrison and Argonne, the only missing puzzle piece was a neighborhood grocery.  Now, according to Municipal Court Judge Paul Sens, Lakeview Grocery fills that niche.

“Harrison Avenue really is the heart of Lakeview, and my wife and I prefer to spend our money here in Orleans Parish, so this is where we shop,” Sens said as he loaded grocery bags into his vehicle.

His wife, Ann, said she no longer needs to drive to Robert E. Lee for groceries and that “LG,” as the store refers to itself, offers amenities she can’t find elsewhere.

“The fresh produce is a big draw, but there are a lot of prepared foods that make it easy on people if they don’t want to cook,” she said.  “And I think they’re trying hard with that little cafe to make the store a neighborhood meeting place, where people can relax and visit with each other.”

The “cafe” is Harrison Cove, a small restaurant with outdoor tables at the Memphis Street end of the store.  It has a separate entry from the main store, in case a shopper just wants a sandwich and drinks instead of rotisserie chickens, bakery goods, wines and food staples.

O’Rourke said the neighborhood has waited a long time for the grocery store, but that growth continued nonetheless even as plans developed.

“Our parish has grown 40 percent in the past two years, if you can believe that,” he said.  “Some people live outside of the neighborhood since Katrina and come back here to go to church, but mainly the people we see are the ones who returned to the neighborhood to live or are new to the neighborhood.  Now we have everything we need right here on Harrison.  The only thing missing is a gas station.”

According to Stoudt, O’Rourke won’t have to wait for long, for a gas station is on the way.

“We never doubted, from even that grim period in the fall of 2005, that we would have what we have today, thanks to all who have who have believed and invested,” Stoudt said.

Ursuline Early Childhood Learning Center debuts with cutting-edge curriculum, facility

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The Times-Picayune, October 4, 2010

In an effort to modernize the way it teaches its very youngest students, Ursuline Academy has recently revamped its early childhood program, investing $3 million in a new classroom building and adopting a student-inspired curriculum, a significant change for a Catholic school steeped in almost three centuries of tradition.

The new center, named after former elementary school principal Sister Teresita Rivet, is housed in what was once a laundry used by Ursuline nuns who lived on the State Street campus.

The 4,500-square-foot building has largely retained its historic facade, but inside, it has been renovated into a large studio space with a trendy warehouse feel, equipped with learning centers, smart boards and lots of colorful toys that help children learn motor skills.

School staff began working to restore the flood-damaged building about three years ago. Before then, the two-story building, built in 1911 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, had mainly been used for storage.

With the facility now nearly complete, 66 students — ages 2 to 5 — cycle between learning centers for art, music, reading and math, and more traditional classroom setups for religion and library time. Nine teachers work in the center. Tuition and fees are about $8,000 a year.

In every part of the center, technology plays an important role. Touch-sensitive tables — which work like huge iPads — teach the girls the alphabet and let them “paint.” Smart boards replace black boards.

The facility was designed by Concordia Architects, a local firm that has designed school facilities across the country and provided the master plan for the Louisiana Children’s Museum.

In addition to providing a first-rate facility, teachers fanned out across the country looking for the right educational model to adopt.

They decided on the Reggio Emilia approach, an Italian style of teaching developed in the 1940s that focuses on a student-inspired curriculum rather than a teacher-driven agenda.

“Previously, teachers taught as if children were little vessels to be filled up with knowledge,” said Kim Harper, Ursuline’s elementary school principal. “Now, teachers view children as capable of constructing their own learning, and lessons are developed from the children’s need to know and their own natural curiosity.”

The Reggio approach has a handful of basic hallmarks that set it apart from more traditional learning methods. Children should have a say in what and how they learn; they should interact with the subject matter being taught; relationships with other children are promoted; and each child should be free to express his or her individuality.

For example, some of the students recently wanted to play store — so the teachers helped them set up a market and began teaching about commerce. They plan to take the students to the Uptown Crescent City Farmer’s Market, and to eventually help them sell items they’ve grown in the school’s garden.

Becky McLellan enrolled her 4-year-old, Cecilia, at Ursuline because of the new Reggio-inspired program. She said it has already had a positive effect on her daughter.

“Every day she learns in some different, wonderful way,” she said. “This has boosted her confidence.”

Judith Kieff, acting chairwoman of department of curriculum and instruction at the University of New Orleans, said a Reggio program, like the one Ursuline is using, can produce a more inspired student. The girls’ market is a good example.

“They’re not looking to the teacher to tell them what they should know,” Kieff said. “The world becomes their teacher.”

Kieff plans to send UNO education students to Ursuline to use the center as a laboratory for their own training.

For Ursuline’s early childhood coordinator Belinda Baker, the building and program represent a philosophy she’s held during nearly 30 years in education.

“I’ve always believed children should be free to express themselves,” she said.

Transportation Consultants Inc. will expand at Port of New Orleans

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The Times-Picayune, July 22, 2010

Transportation Consultants, Inc. said Thursday that it will move its headquarters to New Orleans and establish a $13.5 million warehouse and distribution facility at the port.

The facility will bring with it a total of 80 jobs, but economic development officials say the real value of the plant will be its ability to keep shipping activity in New Orleans that is now going to Houston, while introducing a new approach to manufacturing in New Orleans.

The facility planned by TCI will package the plastic pellets that are used in a wide range of manufacturing processes and deliver them directly to the plants.

Currently, the pellets, which are melted down to make any number of plastic goods, are made in the many plants between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. No Louisiana shipper has the capability to package and ship the pellets in specific sizes, so the goods leave the state in bulk, where they are packaged elsewhere.

Gary LaGrange, president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans, said the new plant gives Louisiana the opportunity to capitalize on that lost business, which he thinks will cause more growth than the expected 60 direct and 20 indirect jobs the facility itself will bring.

“I think it’s going to add work to jobs elsewhere,” he said.

He also said the “investment gives the local transportation sector the tools to handle chemical products more efficiently.”

Michael Hecht, president and CEO of the economic development group Greater New Orleans Inc., says the packaging capability, called value-adding, increases profits for New Orleans companies.

“This gives us the ability to do value-added manufacturing, which we haven’t had in the past,” he said.

Hecht says Louisiana ships most of its raw goods in bulk form, with the exception of coffee, leading to lower profits. “I think this begins to take us in a new direction,” he said.

Hecht also says the plant is a step in the right direction in terms of replacing the massive job loss caused by the shutdown of the Michoud Assembly Facility and the Avondale Shipyard. Northrop Grumman announced plans last week to close the Avondale shipyard in 2013. The Michoud plant is winding down after completing work on the last external fuel tank for the space shuttle.

“We all recognize that it’s unlikely we’ll find a 5,000-job company that will replace Avondale one for one,” Hecht said. That’s why companies like TCI are important. Hecht sees a future where several businesses like TCI make up a “more diverse business portfolio” that’s less risky. “It’s going to take a while to get there, but I’m confident we will,” he said.

The announcement, coming on the heels of the Avondale announcement and the rollout of the last external fuel tank at Michoud, was attended by Gov. Bobby Jindal and other local officials.

“I know our city and our state have faced some challenges, but today is a day to celebrate,” Jindal said. “This is a great day for New Orleans, a great day for Louisiana.”

TCI is a private logistics and warehousing provider that was founded in 1983 in New Orleans but moved to Harahan in 1990.

Jack Jenson, TCI’s CEO, said he jumped at the opportunity to return to New Orleans.

“As Drew Brees said, ‘We begin to understand the importance of making it home and making it successful,'” he said.

Jenson said the project could not have been done without help from state officials from the Port Authority, Louisiana Economic Development, and Entergy Corp.

The project is progressing in two stages. The first stage includes construction on the warehouse and container facilities. TCI obtained Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds and New Markets Tax Credit equity to help finance this construction.

For the second stage, Louisiana Economic Development delivered a total of $900,000 in incentives, money TCI will use to build a rail spur that will allow shipments of plastic pellets to be delivered directly to the plants.

Jindal said that although attracting outside business is important, locally owned companies such as TCI are the driving force behind job recovery.

“The majority of jobs created will come from existing companies,” he said. “We’ve got another Louisiana-based company not just making jobs, but keeping jobs that are already here.”

Jindal pointed to numerous surveys, studies, and rankings he says indicate Louisiana and New Orleans are bucking grim national employment trends. “Every single month during the economic recession, we’ve had lower unemployment than the national average,” he boasted.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu also spoke at the event, commending the company for showing confidence in the city and the port.

“TCI’s relocation and expansion will bring new jobs, new tax revenue and a growing, diversifying business to New Orleans,” he said.

Crescent Growth Capital opens its doors with New Orleans, Dallas locations

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Crescent Growth Capital, LLC is pleased to announce its debut last month as a skilled provider of financial advisory services for tax credit financing. Its four principals, Eric Finley, Ryan Kenter, Ray Rabalais and Troy Villafarra, possess a combined total of more than sixty years of banking experience coupled with a particular expertise in structuring transactions involving the use of New Markets Tax Credits.

“Since 2005, my colleagues and I have collaborated to close over $380 million of New Markets Tax Credit financings. We anticipate our new venture helping to further broaden the successful application of this comparatively recently-established federal government tax credit program, which has already generated several billion dollars of investment in America’s most severely disadvantaged communities,” stated Managing Director Ray Rabalais.

Crescent Growth Capital encourages project sponsors, community development entities, banks, and potential tax credit investors to contact its principals to learn more about the benefit they may derive from tax credit equity.

For more information, visit www.crescentgrowthcapital.com

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