12/31/09

The Dr. King Legacy Apartments project, a three-story, 45-unit new construction mixed-income and mixed-use building for families, closed on financing on December 31, 2009. The project is located at 3800 W 16th Street, in the North Lawndale neighborhood, and is near where Dr. King Jr lived in Chicago to bring attention to the divided housing market in Chicago. The project is being developed through a partnership of Lawndale Christian Development Corporation, Westside Federation of Chicago, and Safeway Construction, Inc.

The Dr. King Legacy Apartments development is the catalyst for a larger MLK district revitalization effort called the MLK Historic District which will which will also include a community center, a campus park and MLK memorial, a new public library, and a new streetscape on 16th Street.

Lighten-Gale Group helped the developer structure and coordinate the financing, which is a combination of sources including a construction and permanent loan from Citibank NA, a TCAP Loan from the City of Chicago (part of the 2009 Federal Stimulus Funding program), a grant from the Chicago Low Income Housing Trust Fund to provide affordable units for extremely low income households, a grant from the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for energy efficiency, state tax credit donation equity through Foss and Company, and 9% LIHTCs allocated by both the Illinois Housing Development Authority and City of Chicago and syndicated by The Richman Group.