Development Team Wins Innovator of the Year Award

The Business Review – Albany, NY: Representatives from real estate firms Mercer Management Inc. and Omni Housing Development Inc., and the law firms of McNamee Lochner and Cannon Heyman & Weiss, LLP recently received the Innovator of the Year Award from New York State Association for Affordable Housing for their role in the refinancing of the South Mall Towers Senior Apartments in downtown Albany, N.Y. The award recognizes people who have made a significant advance in the way housing is financed, built, designed, or developed.

The team included Mark Sween of Paramount Financial Group, Thomas Connolly of McNamee Lochner, Steven Heyman of CHW, Michael Tucker of Mercer Management, and Duncan Barret of Omni Housing Development.

Mercer Management and Omni Housing Development are working on an $11.5 million renovation of the South Mall Towers, a 26-year old apartment complex in downtown Albany serving low-income seniors and disabled residents. The renovations are expected to take two years.

The development team put together a creative financing deal, in which $11.8 million of a $16 million tax-exempt bond issue is a “low floater” with an interest rate of 1.15 percent. JP Morgan/Chase and the Federal National Mortgage Association provided credit enhancement securing an additional $9.9 million from a low-income housing tax credit investment with $2.3 million in grants from the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The City of Albany Industrial Development Authority also assisted in putting the financing together.

The development team also included the non-profit owners of the building, SoMalTow Housing Co. Inc., Timothy Dormady, Paul Montgomery, Barbara Higbee, CK Dennis Architect and UW Marx Construction.