Non-profits

Homeland Grocery

December 3, 2020 by

Since 1993, community stakeholders and City Councilmembers have been trying to bring a full-service grocer to Northeast Oklahoma City, going so far as to create the NE Renaissance TIF District, and providing $4,400,000 in TIF financing to incentivize a developer to build a grocery store in the neighborhood.

In early 2020, a development partnership between The Alliance for Economic Development of Oklahoma City, Inc., Northeast Equity Group and TR Partners negotiated a long term lease with HAC, Inc. to bring a Homeland Food Store to NE 36th and N. Lincoln Blvd (the “Project”). The new full-service store will be in a unique position to provide healthy affordable alternatives to fast food, in a USDA Food Desert that currently has no full-service grocery store, and has seen 2 of its limited-service grocery stores close within the last 2 years.

The Project is expected to create 75 new full time jobs, earning competitive wages, a broad suite of benefits and the potential for ownership: HAC Inc. offers all full time employees a no cost participation in its Employee Stock Ownership Program (“ESOP”). The ESOP is set up as a retirement plan on the employees’ behalf, and after 3 years of service, the ESOP becomes 100% vested in the employees account.

The Homeland Grocery project at 36th and Lincoln is part of an overall master development plan that includes the City of Oklahoma City Senior Wellness Center, which will be operated in part by Langston University, the state of Oklahoma’s only Historically Black College and University. During the Wellness Center planning stage, a grocery store was identified as a critical co-anchor for the master plan.

In August, 2020, Crescent Growth Capital was engaged by the Homeland team to pursue a New Market Tax Credit (“NMTC”) financing to construct a new, 30,000 sf full-service grocery store, including a bakery, deli, and pharmacy with drive through. A total of $10.5M of NMTC allocation was provided by Heartland Renaissance Fund and US Bank, with US Bank also serving as the NMTC investor, providing an estimated $1.5M of NMTC net benefit for the project.

Audubon Gentilly Charter School

July 1, 2020 by

Public education in New Orleans is today wholly entrusted to non-profit charter schools. Multiple networks of independent charter schools are supervised by the elected school board, which functions as the disinterested enforcer of academic standards, provider of resources best offered in a centralized fashion, and owner of school buildings. The resulting highly entrepreneurial environment has transformed educational outcomes throughout the city and afforded to successful charter school operators the opportunity to take over operation of additional schools.

Audubon Schools began as a traditionally-administered public elementary school in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. Almost fifty years ago, four teachers attending Montessori training at Tulane University resolved to find a public school home for this unique pedagogical approach, then and now mostly present in private Montessori schools. The teachers successfully petitioned the Orleans Parish School Board, which authorized “Audubon Montessori” in 1981. Five years later, the school started a French immersion track, which was formally sponsored by the French government in 1990 (The French Ministry of Education supports the program to this day). In the years leading up to Hurricane Katrina (2005), Audubon Montessori became widely referred to as a “public dream school” beloved by its parents (who affixed to their cars bumper stickers sporting this slogan). In the wake of Katrina, Audubon reopened as an independent charter school.

Under the leadership of Superintendent Henderson Lewis (2015-2022), the OPSB adopted a policy of encouraging successful charter school operators to grow by being awarded additional schools to administer. In Gentilly Terrace, an historic neighborhood of the city platted in 1909, the closure of the neighborhood’s charter elementary school was announced in 2016, a consequence of unimpressive academic results and dwindling enrollment. An unprecedented alliance of the Gentilly Terrace & Gardens Improvement Association, the leadership of Audubon Schools and the OPSB was formed to argue for the selection of Audubon as the new operator for Gentilly Terrace’s neighborhood elementary school. In the fall of 2018, Audubon Gentilly began operations, immediately ranking among the most sought-after public schools in the city.

Crescent Growth Capital was hired by Audubon Schools to provide contingent fee-based historic preservation consulting and historic tax credit monetization services, to subsidize the $2.7 million cost of readying the school building for its new operator. Gentilly Terrace School was constructed in 1914, to a design by architect E.A. Christy, and expanded in 1924. The wood-frame Craftsman style building boasts numerous flourishes which typify the Arts-and-Crafts movement, including scalloped rafter tails, decorative friezes and elaborate knee-brace brackets at the gable ends, A contributing element to the Gentilly Terrace National Register Historic District, the school received a rehabilitated ground floor and dramatically re-landscaped side yard play areas incorporating best practices in stormwater management.

Crescent Growth Capital’s in-house historic preservation specialist prepared a three-element Historic Preservation Certification Application over seventeen months. Part 3 approval was received on December 19, 2019, with credit monetization accomplished by Crescent and tax credit sale proceeds delivered to Audubon Schools in July of 2020.

San Antonio Food Bank – Phase II

January 28, 2020 by

Founded in 1980, the San Antonio Food Bank (“SAFB”) is a non-profit organization that serves as a clearinghouse, receiving and storing donated food, fresh produce, and other groceries. SAFB distributes these items in manageable quantities to over 500 independent partner agencies that help people in need. However, SAFB’s activities are not limited to distributing food to street-level food kitchens; SAFB also operates programs to help people escape the poverty that results in chronic hunger and encourages better nutrition throughout the region via additional services.

Texas is ranked 2nd in the country in household incidences of food insecurity – unreliable access to sufficient, affordable, nutritious food – with 1 in 6 Texans living in food insecure households. The need in San Antonio is even more dire: one in five adults, and one in four children reported struggling with food insecurity in the past year. Seniors are equally at risk, and often have to choose between adequate nutritious food and vital medical services.

SAFB has grown its reach to include 16 counties, feeding 58,000 people a week. Of the 58,000 clients served weekly, 35% are children, 25% routinely have to choose between food and medical services, 46% work and still face food insecurity, and 67% have incomes below the federal poverty level.

The new 50,000 sf facility will house a production kitchen, an expanded area for culinary training, a vegetable prep plant, and a seasonal venison processing plant.

Beyond the physical characteristics of the new facility, it will support four key SAFB efforts, the Culinary Training Program, the Production Kitchen, a “Grab-and-Go” salad prep plant, and SAFB’s “Hunters for the Hungry” program. The SAFB has run a hugely successful culinary training program for more than a decade that targets the homeless, disabled, and long-term unemployed with the training. This new facility would offer new classroom and teaching space. The greater San Antonio region has hundreds of unfilled positions today in the hospitality industry, and this expansion would allow SAFB to double the number of participants per class (from 8-10 per class to 16-20 per class). Classes run in 18 week blocks and will soon be offered with a guaranteed job and stipend.

The new facility would be home to a state-of-the-art production kitchen capable of putting out more than 10,000 meals a day. One of SAFB’s primary goals is to meet the near-constant demand for meals for children and seniors but the kitchen in the existing facility limits SAFB’s ability to meet that demand. The new kitchen will operate 2-3 shifts per day and as many as 7 days a week. The addition of this kitchen would allow the current kitchen on the Westside campus to become home to Catalyst Catering, SAFB’s social enterprise, which is now using a kitchen offsite.

This development plan also includes a new “Grab-and-Go” salad prep plant where SAFB would wash, store, prep/chop, and assemble healthy salads (with as much of the produce as possible coming from its own farms) for distribution via its social enterprise efforts and mission programs. The organization is the leader in southwest Texas in promoting healthy eating, and the addition of a salad prep plant would afford a wider variety of healthy food options to those facing hunger. SAFB envisions the salads offered on a Grab-and-Go model, creating a new source of revenue to support its catering and Mobile Mercado social enterprise programs.

Lastly, the new 50,000 building will expand SAFB’s existing “Hunters for the Hungry” program that allows individual hunters and ranch owners to donate harvested deer to be processed for free, with the venison going to the SAFB as an additional source of high-quality protein for its meals. South Texas has the largest deer population in the United States and existing local processors participating in similar programs that use harvested deer to feed the hungry simply cannot handle the volume. So SAFB plans on addressing this opportunity by building out its own (seasonal) processing plant to meet the need.

The SAFB may also expand this processing plant to allow for the processing of feral hogs, which cost Texas neighborhoods, farms and ranches hundreds of millions of dollars in damage each year. The State of Texas allows for hogs to be trapped live and taken to a USDA inspected facility for harvesting. This new processing plant would help address both the State’s ballooning feral hog population and its pervasive food insecurity.

In January, 2020, Crescent Growth Capital assisted SAFB with the closing of a $19M NMTC financing, utilizing allocation provided by Texas Mezzanine Fund, McCormick Baron Salazar, and PeopleFund and an investment from US Bank.

This project will create 9 direct FTE positions, as well as an estimated 40 construction jobs. Furthermore, the culinary training program will soon be able to offer its graduates with a guaranteed job as well as a stipend, so the ancillary job creation from this programming alone will be roughly 120 positions over the first three years.

Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep – Phase II

September 18, 2019 by

Founded in Chicago in 2001 by Father John P. Foley, S.J., the Cristo Rey network is the largest network of high schools in the US whose enrollment is limited to low-income youth. Cristo Rey employs an innovative business model, wherein students work five days each month in entry-level jobs at local professional companies, with the fee for their work being directed to underwrite tuition costs. Operating on a franchise system, each Cristo Rey school is a partnership between a local operator with an established track record, and the proven Cristo Rey 9-12 programming that is based on rigorous academics, four years of professional work experience, and Catholic moral values, employed in a high-expectations environment. Students’ tuition is subsidized by the same work study program that prepares them for college, as well as putting them in good position to succeed in their first job.

Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep (“CRDCP”), the 30th Cristo Rey school nationwide, welcomed its inaugural 126-member freshman class in September, 2015, operating out of the St. Augustine Drive site in Pleasant Grove, under a lease with the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. The current class is 94% Hispanic, 70% come from the failing DISD public school system, 70% report knowing no one either in their family or neighborhood who attended college, and the average 5-member family household income of the student body is around $35,000.

CRDCP employs the same Corporate Work Study Program found in all Cristo Rey schools. The program is an innovative model of education that gives students a Catholic, college-preparatory education while earning work experience in a corporate setting. Four students rotate through the week to fill the position full-time. Each student has an assigned day on which he or she works. On Friday, the four students rotate to share the fifth day of the week. In each four-week span, each student will have one week in which he or she works two days. Student schedules are created so that students never miss a class.

Students are employees of the Corporate Work Study Program, not the job sponsors. Sponsors pay a flat fee to the Corporate Work Study Program for one full-time Corporate Work Study Team. The Corporate Work Study Program handles all payroll, W-4, I-9, Worker’s Compensation, FICA and FUTA paperwork, as well as all routine employer issues. The Corporate Work Study Program is separately incorporated, functioning as an employment agency within Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep.

CRDCP’s Corporate Work Study program partners include a broad spectrum of Dallas’ biggest regional, national and international companies, operating in a variety of industries, such as commercial real estate, accounting, law, energy exploration/oilfield services, non-profits, and consumer products.

The project site is located within a USDA-designated Food Desert, and Cristo Rey Dallas provides students with meals through the National School Lunch Program and have school-wide physical recreation time on Friday mornings to encourage healthy habits.

With the main academic building completed as a result of the first NMTC closing in December, 2016, the administration has turned its focus to the rest of the campus – specifically the 32,000 sf Innovation Center, housing the dining hall and technology and resource centers, as well as an administrative building, Corporate Work Study Program headquarters, an arts and music center, a gymnasium, a sports field and parking.

In September, 2019, Crescent Growth Capital helped facilitate a $16,500,000 NMTC financing to fund the school’s Phase 2 campus development plan. By leveraging NMTC allocation provided by Dallas Development Fund, Raza Development Fund, and top off allocation as well as NMTC investment from Capital One, the financing could deliver up to $3M in net benefit to the school.

Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas – Phases I & II

July 23, 2019 by

Girl Scouts is proud to be celebrating 101 years of building girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place. As a national movement of more than 2.3 million girls, 890,000 adults and more than 59 million alumnae, Girl Scouts is a force for developing leadership skills in girls. Since its founding by Juliette Gordon Low, Girl Scouts has been an inclusive sisterhood of women and girls that represents every zip code across the country.

In the last 101 years, the world has changed dramatically. When Juliette founded the organization in 1912, women had very few personal rights. Today, girls face another set of challenges as they navigate their lives in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. The 21^st century requires a different kind of leader – one who not only values the power of diversity, inclusion, and collaboration, but also is committed to bringing people together to improve neighborhoods, communities, and the world.

Girl Scouts is today, as it always has been, the organization best positioned to offer girls the tools they need to be successful leaders now and throughout their lives. In fact, Girl Scouts is the largest pipeline for female leaders in the country:

Nearly 80% of female business owners were Girl Scouts.

A full 68% of women serving in Congress were Girl Scouts and every female Secretary of State was a Girl Scout.

Nearly every woman who has ever flown in space was a Girl Scout.

Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas (GSNETX) was formed as a result of realignment in 2007. In 2014, their council served nearly 31,000 girls in a 32-county area from DFW Airport, east to Louisiana and north to Oklahoma. In Dallas alone, more than 3,000 girls – 67% of which were Hispanic – participated in the Dallas Area Community Outreach Programs (Title 1 schools, low-income areas primarily in South Dallas, in DISD schools).

Camp Whispering Cedars, established in 1926, has welcomed nearly 100,000 Girl Scouts since inception. Encompassing approximately 60 acres, Camp Whispering Cedars is the largest urban camp serving girls in North Texas. The camp is located just 20 minutes south of downtown Dallas within the City of Dallas boundaries. Its access to a major urban population, with an estimated 40,000 girls living in low socio-economic conditions, makes this property ideally suited to reduce barriers to participation for a large number of girls and adults who have limited resources and transportation options.

The Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) Center at Camp Whispering Cedars is a pilot program for Girl Scouts USA and is expected to be the model for other urban camps nationally. Camp Whispering Cedars’ proximity to the metropolitan area of Dallas along with its rural seclusion from the urban or suburban environments makes it a unique camp that can offer a careful integration of pristine and protected natural environments and modern technology and its applications. This integration provides endless opportunities to elevate girl programming and experiences to new levels of creativity and innovation.

STEM programming has been at the center of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience since its inception. To further this mission, GSNETX’s vision for Camp Whispering Cedars is to create a STEM Center of Excellence where girls can explore science, technology, engineering and math, hands-on in the living laboratory of the outdoors. At Camp Whispering Cedars, girls will grow in confidence and make lifelong memories. Girls will come to have fun through traditional outdoor adventure and exploration while, at the same time, they will be offered programming that naturally integrates STEM into activities. Girls will take a deep dive into the natural world and tackle high-adventure challenges through project-based STEM activities. Thanks to a wide array of partnerships, Camp Whispering Cedars will offer girls a variety of programming, including:

Hunt Oil will identify unique geological features of the site and key areas to observe unique formations on the property, including the escarpment between the Eagle Ford Shale and the Austin Chalk, which runs directly through the site.

Texas Instruments will help incorporate STEM learning concepts into a Girl Scout badge-earning workshop, identifying key areas of STEM career exploration to address with the Scouts.

Texas Master Naturalists will identify environmental and conservation learning opportunities and help GSNETX to develop focused programming for the Scouts.

Fluor Corporation, AT&T and University of Texas at Dallas will all help develop specific STEM-based programming for both the regular summer curriculum and College Journey.

City of Dallas/State of Texas will help GSNETX to develop a water conservation and stream monitoring program, in which girls will learn about water and its impact on the environment.

Texas Trees Foundation and Dogwood Canyon will identify unique hardwood trees, flora and fauna and other unique natural features on the site, and will help develop hiking and nature trails that highlight these features.

Perot Museum will provide STEM-related programming at the museum, and will bring girls to Camp Whispering Cedars to explore the concepts in an outdoor environment.

Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas initiated a capital campaign last year during the 100th anniversary of the organization to help support the Whispering Cedars Camp transformation. GSNETX received a $1 million gift from the Rees-Jones Foundation. This initial gift allowed Girl Scouts to acquire an additional 36 acres of property immediately adjacent to the camp to provide more program space while creating a buffer from the outside world. GSNETX now has almost 100 acres in the City of Dallas to serve girls and will break ground on the Rees-Jones Welcome Center this summer.

In 2016, GSNETX engaged Crescent Growth Capital to facilitate a NMTC financing so as to reduce the fundraising burden required to finance the Camp Whispering Cedars renovation. In December, 2016, CGC and GSNETX closed on a $8M NMTC financing, utilizing allocation provided by Dallas Development Fund and Capital One.

In July, 2019, Crescent Growth Capital facilitated a second NMTC financing for the Camp Whispering Cedars project, with an additional $5.5M of NMTC allocation provided by Dallas Development Fund.

Belle Glade Teen Center

April 30, 2019 by

The first Boys Club of Palm Beach County opened in West Palm Beach in 1971 providing young males a wholesome alternative to the streets. Today, BGCPBC is the largest youth development organization in the county and offers a robust portfolio of high-yield programs for $30 per child annually—or no cost; no one is turned away due to inability to pay.

BGCPBC members predominantly attend poor performing schools in a 66% -minority school district where 56% of students are eligible for the federal lunch program. Black students in particular have the lowest graduation rates state and county wide. For young low income Black males, finding meaningful employment is also extremely difficult. This troubling trend starts early with poor academic performance, particularly from ages 13 to 18; research indicates that children who live in poverty face enormous challenges to succeed in school.

Interventions are needed to halt the progression toward dropping out of school and being unemployed or under-employed, especially at the Belle Glade Teen Center where 70% of members’ families earn less than $19,000 annually; 77% of members reside in a single-parent family or other non-traditional households; and 90% of members are Black; 5% are bi/multiracial; 4% are Hispanic and 1% are White.

BGCPBC is committed to help its current 13-18-year-old members and alumni who have dropped out of post-secondary education and are struggling with joblessness and a lack of direction in their adult lives. The resultant Teen Employability Program (TEP), combining foundational education, job readiness training, structured employment in the Clubs, and career exploration, dramatically increased BGCPBC’s teen membership base by 176%–from 500 teens in 2013 to 1,381 today. Most importantly, the program has motivated academic success. In 2017, 99% of BGCPBC high school seniors graduated on time, and 75% are now entering into post-secondary educational programs (certifications, vocational, associates or four-year college tracts).

BGCPBC maintains six elementary school-based sites in the Glades allowing members to transition seamlessly to the Teen Center. This cohesion introduces younger members to programs and staff long before they are old enough to attend the Teen Center. It’s often heard that Teen Center members are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to join the Teen Center dance troupe, obtain coveted Junior Staff positions, and attend the College Tour—for nearly all, their first time on a college campus.

Unfortunately, the Teen Center in Belle Glade is turning away needy youth every day due to lack of the facilities and staff to accommodate them. So, instead of enjoying the nurturing environment and quality programs the Club has to offer, teens are going home to empty houses or worse, turning to negative influences of life on the streets.

In June of 2018, B&GC of Palm Beach County hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the new teen center. Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Federal NMTC allocation. In April of 2019, Crescent and the B&GC of Palm Beach County closed on $8.4M of Federal NMTCs provided by Florida Community Loan Fund, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by US Bank.

Utilizing land donated by the County, $5.7M in capital campaign donations, and an estimated $1.3M in NMTC net benefit, B&GC of Palm Beach County began constructing the new 14,000 sf Smith & Moore Family Teen Center. The new Center will be nearly twice the size of the current Center, allowing a 300% increase in members — from 300-900 teens from the tri-city Glades area — with average daily attendance projected to increase from 125-150 to 300 – 350 post completion.

Dedicated workspaces and youth development professionals will provide the opportunity for Career Readiness programs including:
• Career Launch programs to introduce young people to the world of employment preparation, financial literacy, and internship opportunities.
• Culinary Arts program in a new teaching kitchen complimented with a Horticultural program so that students can learn gardening to table techniques.
• Performing & Visual Arts programs in areas of digital movie making, music composition and performance, and photography.
• STEM programs empowering youth to create new solutions to real-world challenges. From curriculum in App intermediate-level coding to hands on science and engineering activities.

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