Education

Tulane University – Devlin Fieldhouse

October 15, 2014 by

Constructed in 1933, partially with funds earned by Tulane University’s football team in its 1932 appearance in the Rose Bowl, Devlin Fieldhouse is the 9th-oldest continuously active basketball venue in the United States. In 2012, Crescent Growth Capital was hired to supervise the state historic tax credit application and monetization process for the fieldhouse’s $5 million historic rehabilitation.

CGC authored two sets of historic preservation certification applications for the two-phase project, translating architect Gould Evans’ design into an easily-comprehensible narrative resulting in no conditions attached to the Part 2 approvals issued by the Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation.

The rehabilitated fieldhouse retains the original’s fine Art Deco exterior while re-exposing the steel trusses and redwood ceiling decking formerly obscured by a drop ceiling installed in an earlier renovation. The entrance lobby and common areas were recast according to a more spacious design prescribing clean lines and a dark color palette. Additional work was accomplished renovating and expanding public restrooms and locker rooms.

New Orleans Military & Maritime Academy

October 3, 2014 by

Inspired by the acclaimed military academy model employed by the Noble Street Charter School in Chicago, the New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy (“NOMMA”) opened its doors in August 2011. Requiring that all its student-cadets enroll in an on-campus Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (MJROTC) unit, NOMMA accepts all students who have passed Louisiana’s 8th Grade high-stakes LEAP test. Students defined by the state as “at-risk” are particularly sought. School leaders believe that NOMMA’s emphasis on self-discipline and “moral literacy” coupled with a “standards-based” curriculum that clearly defines academic and behavioral expectations, creates a uniquely potent platform to inculcate good habits in today’s youth.

The charter school opened in a temporary facility, a former public elementary school dating to the 1950s, but from the beginning its leaders envisioned moving to a permanent home. A plan was devised to rehabilitate historic Buildings 16 & 71 in Federal City, a former naval base, and link them with new construction to produce an 85,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art school campus.

Click this link to watch a short video on the school: Community Impact: NOMMA

In October 2012, Crescent Growth Capital helped NOMMA close on a $17.9 million aggregate QEI with Dudley Ventures and SECDE Ventures, leveraging CDBG proceeds and Qualified Zone Academy and Qualified School Construction Bonds (“QZABs” and “QSCBs”) to help fund the $18.4 million construction budget. The closing was a massive undertaking, requiring a team effort from a number of parties, including Iberia Bank, the New Orleans Federal Alliance, the Algiers Development District, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Louisiana Office of Community Development.

Simultaneously, CGC authored sets of federal and state historic preservation certification applications for Buildings 16 and 71, mediated between project architects and the Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation, and aided in the creation of a new National Register Historic District: the U.S. Naval Station Algiers Historic District, which came into being on September 11, 2013. In 2014, the historic tax credit application and financing process was closed out, with NOMMA having incurred $10 million in Qualified Rehabilitation Expenses. This QRE total generated over $4.5 million in federal and state historic tax credit equity for the school.

For more information on the school, please visit their website.

New Orleans Center for Creative Arts

December 19, 2013 by

New Orleans Center for Creative Arts is a regional, pre-professional arts training center that offers students intensive instruction in culinary arts, dance, media arts: filmmaking & audio production, music (classical, jazz, vocal), theatre arts (drama, musical theatre, theatre design), visual arts, and creative writing, while demanding simultaneous academic excellence.

NOCCA was founded in 1973 by a diverse coalition of artists, educators, business leaders, and community activists who saw the need for an institution devoted to our region’s burgeoning young talent. Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick, Jr., Terence Blanchard, Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet, Wendell Pierce, Anthony Mackie, Mary Catherine Garrison and Gary Solomon Jr. are only a few NOCCA graduates who can attest to the extraordinary educational opportunity the Center represents to the children of Louisiana.

NOCCA was operated for its first quarter-century by the Orleans Parish School Board; students were required to be residents of New Orleans. In 2000, the school relocated to its present campus, on the banks of the Mississippi River in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, and its governance was revised to provide for direct administration by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. At this time NOCCA began accepting students residing anywhere in Louisiana, in service of its broadened role as the premier performing and visual arts high school for the state.

In the ensuing years, NOCCA’s curriculum matured to encompass concentrations in eleven disciplines, including jazz, classical instrumental music, drama and the visual arts. The events of 2005 tested the institution, scattering its faculty and student body across the country, but NOCCA’s stakeholders responded by embracing a bold plan for growth.

Additional concentrations, in the digital media and culinary arts were launched, and, in 2011, a longstanding dream to offer at NOCCA a full school day of instruction came to fruition with the debut of the Academic Studio. For the first time, curricula in math, science and the humanities were taught on campus, making it possible for NOCCA students to acquire an innovative, fully comprehensive, arts-centered secondary education without having to leave the site. NOCCA’s progress has come in the face of ten budget cuts, some occurring mid-year, over the last four years; the school’s state funding has decreased by 25% during this period.

Responding to these challenges with characteristic boldness, the NOCCA Institute – NOCCA’s community support and advocacy organization – developed a plan for the NOCCA Forum, a dramatic $26.4MM proposal to lay the foundation for the school’s future. The Forum will incorporate cutting-edge facilities and include revenue-generating elements to provide independent means to the institution’s endeavors. In early 2013, NOCCA contacted Crescent Growth Capital (“CGC”) to assist them in bringing together financing for the Forum.

On December 19th, 2013, CGC helped NOCCA close and fund a $12.5MM Qualified Equity Investment (“QEI”), using New Markets Tax Credits allocations of $6.5MM and $6MM provided by First NBC Bank and Whitney Bank, respectively, and leveraging an estimated $7.8MM in Federal and State Historic Tax Credit equity, and $14MM of Qualified Zone Academy Bonds (“QZABs”). The Federal and State New Markets and Historic Tax Credit equity, combined with $14MM of QZABs provided the NOCCA Institute with nearly $12.5MM in combined subsidy, which amounts to nearly half of the project budget.

Boy Scouts Circle Ten Council – Camp Wisdom

September 28, 2012 by

For over 100 years the Dallas-headquartered Circle Ten Council of the Boy Scouts of America has utilized outdoor instruction in woodcraft to cultivate leadership skills, independent thinking and good citizenship among the region’s youth. However, the most disadvantaged youths often struggle to participate in scouting, because the volunteer time required to establish and maintain typical grassroots Boy Scout infrastructure cannot be provided by the single parents raising so many of these children. In response, Circle Ten has long been committed to an outreach program to serve underprivileged boys, ScoutReach, which provides financial and human resources to help poorer boys participate in scouting. Last year over 8,400 of the 54,000 Boy Scouts in the Dallas region, nearly 1 in 6, were assisted by the ScoutReach program.

The social and community benefits of scouting flow from the Scout Method, a time-tested program of informal education and character development that the hinges upon the intrinsic appeal of the outdoors to young men. The Scout Method develops in participants individual initiative, self-reliance, collaborative skills, and, in general, encourages young men to achieve their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potential. Empirical research suggests that men who were Boy Scouts are less likely to drop out of high school, substantially more likely to graduate from college, and go on to earn higher incomes when compared to the population at large.

Within metropolitan Dallas, the ScoutReach program targets underprivileged young men, bringing the benefits of participation in Boy Scouts to those individuals most at risk of becoming anti-social, unproductive members of society. However, several years of participation in scouting is typically required for these benefits to be realized. Boy Scout statistics indicate that 85% of scouts who go camping in their first year will continue in scouting for another year. By contrast, retention rates among those who do not camp in their first year are appreciably lower, with only 50% continuing to participate for another year. Bolstering Circle Ten’s camping capacity and improving the camping experience is therefore crucial to the effectiveness of the ScoutReach program.

Located on 371 acres just 11 miles from downtown Dallas, Camp Wisdom is the primary campground for scouts participating via the ScoutReach program. Camp Wisdom also serves as a venue for the Boy Scouts’ school-based Learning for Life character-building leadership program and is home to nearly four dozen campsites, rifle and archery ranges, a fully-stocked lake, an outdoor amphitheater, and a high-ropes fitness challenge course. Camp Wisdom’s last round of infrastructure improvements occurred decades ago.

Circle Ten Council hired Crescent Growth Capital to structure and execute a $5.7 million NMTC financing to help fund badly-needed facility and infrastructure upgrades. With a program including construction of a new leadership conference center, to double teaching capacity and replace an antiquated 1940s-era dining hall, the Camp Wisdom improvements will not only be utilized by the Boy Scouts but will also be available for use by outside organizations, such as the Dallas Independent School District.

In the course of successfully closing the NMTC financing for Camp Wisdom, CGC located a Dallas-based multinational corporation to act as the tax credit investor on the transaction. The willingness of this firm to invest at an appreciably higher price than the going market rate resulted in a net benefit to the Boy Scouts of nearly 20% of the value of the New Markets Tax Credit financing, a significant improvement over the 12-13% common to NMTC financings of this size.

Consequently, CGC was able to effect over $1 million in subsidy for the Circle Ten Council in service of their plans for Camp Wisdom, improving retention rates among ScoutReach participants, better integrating the facility with the surrounding highly-distressed low income community, and bringing the benefits of scouting to more individuals far sooner than would otherwise be the case.

St. Mary’s University

June 28, 2012 by

Founded in 1852, St. Mary’s University was the first institution of higher learning established in San Antonio. St. Mary’s is the oldest Catholic university in Texas and is a nationally-recognized liberal arts institution with a student population of nearly 4,000 of all faiths and socio-economic backgrounds. St. Mary’s is a federally-designated “Hispanic Serving Institution” with a 70% student minority population. Furthermore, 45% of the student body are first generation college attendees.

Located in the heart of San Antonio’s predominately Hispanic Westside, St. Mary’s is one of the largest employers in the neighborhood and boasts a long history of neighborhood engagement. The university’s students, staff, and faculty are committed to community service. The Westside neighborhood suffers from poverty, high unemployment and poor health on the part of its inhabitants. In 2007, the university established a task force to work with community leaders and local business proprietors in order to develop a comprehensive plan suited to the Westside’s specific needs. The task force identified a targeted area consisting of seven census tracts; all are low-income, and six are severely distressed.

The resulting St. Mary’s Neighborhood Revitalization Project, part of the school’s five-year strategic plan, commits the university to working on the revitalization of the areas surrounding the main campus and to be actively involved in community outreach, development and improvement. The Neighborhood Revitalization Project has three chief components: the Neighborhood Resource Center, the Sports Complex, and the renovation of St. Louis Hall.

The Neighborhood Resource Center component of St. Mary’s Neighborhood Revitalization Project will provide desperately needed technical assistance and microgrants to struggling businesses and residents in the neighborhood.

The sports complex component will combat endemic obesity among the poor Hispanic population of the Westside by providing access to state-of-the-art recreational facilities. The new complex will also generate significant new tax revenues for local government, in recognition of which Bexar County has set aside $6 million to help fund the facility.

The final component of the university’s revitalization project, the renovation of historic St. Louis Hall, preserves for future generations one of the most significant buildings remaining on the Westside and the centerpiece of St. Mary’s University.

In June 2012, Crescent Growth Capital accomplished a financial closing on a $12 million Qualified Equity Investment, providing St. Mary’s University with a significant New Markets Tax Credit benefit. This NMTC financing, the first of two that are projected, will keep St. Mary’s Neighborhood Revitalization Project on track by compensating for city budget cuts that threatened the Neighborhood Resource Center with closure, as well as by alleviating pressure on alumni donors and the university’s endowment.

Christian Brothers School

January 11, 2010 by

Funded by a $5 million New Markets Tax Credit qualified equity investment paired with another $1 million of unleveraged sources, the Christian Brothers School new multi-purpose facility constitutes the first new building constructed in the New Orleans institution’s fifty-year history. At last, the school’s student body will have access to modern athletic facilities, a dedicated venue for the arts and a science lab.

Qualified for NMTCs under special Gulf Opportunity Zone (“GO Zone”) targeted population rules instituted to assist the Gulf Coast’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina, CBS’ multi-purpose facility is another impressive illustration of the region’s comeback. Like many other area institutions, Christian Brothers School continues to grapple with general post-Katrina financial constraints; without the NMTC subsidy, the school’s new building could not have been afforded.

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