Ogden financing plan would bring about $2.1 million in net grant-equivalent funding for Marshall White Center

Cody Rogers, an attorney with Stinson working for the city, told a March 25 joint work session that a New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) transaction has been structured to finance the rebuild of the Marshall White Community Center in Ogden.

Rogers said the Community Development Finance Alliance (CDFA), a Utah-based community development entity (CDE) that recently received an allocation of NMTC authority, has allocated $10,000,000 of its authority to the Marshall White project. That allocation yields $3,900,000 in tax credits (39 percent of the qualified equity investment), and US Bank — the investor in the deal — agreed to pay about $0.80 for each dollar of credit, yielding roughly $3,120,000 in equity to be invested in the project.

Why it matters: the structure is designed to move private equity into a low-income community project while keeping the city’s operations unchanged. Rogers described the $3.12 million from the investor, minus placement, audit and closing reserves, and fees, as resulting in “a little over $2,000,000 … essentially given to the project for free.” That sum, Rogers said, would be advanced on the day of the NMTC closing and held in an account the city can draw against for eligible project costs.

Rogers outlined the mechanics: because municipalities cannot be direct recipients of NMTC…