Mixed-use, multi-purpose facilities have something for everyone, bringing together business incubators, daycare, maker spaces, healthcare clinics, affordable housing, green space, vocational training, fresh food, and more.
More is Better
2018 marked a continuation of the recent trend toward multi-component projects. Nearly one-third of NMTC projects (31.7 percent) included multiple components, up from 17 percent in 2017.
Twenty-three projects (9.2 percent) included more than one nonprofit or community facility component, and several projects serve as hubs for social service delivery. Thirty projects featured shared space for nonprofits, small businesses, entrepreneurs, makers, and technology researchers. For more on the various community facility components, see page 19.
Project Examples
University Enterprise Laboratories (UEL), Saint Paul, MN
UEL provides wet labs, office space, and innovation/collaboration spaces. The NMTC helped UEL expand their current facility.
Make the Road Community Center, Corona, NY
MRNY seeks to consolidate its operations into a new community facility to significantly decrease operating expenses tied to rents and free up funds to increase services provided to the local low-income minority community in NYC. The center will include classrooms, a library, community meeting rooms, a childcare space, a commercial kitchen and food pantry, and office space for MRNY staff. It will allow MRNY to increase service legal services, education, training, college access services, and leadership development.
Swift Factory, Hartford, CT
The substantial rehabilitation of the Swift Factory in Hartford, Connecticut into a commercial space with approximately 86,500 rentable square feet. After completion of the rehabilitation, the building will house tenants who will provide jobs readily accessible to low income people, support business development in the food industry, and improve community health through light industrial/manufacturing, shared office and equipment space, and a healthcare clinic. Right: the before the rehab.
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science, Chicago, IL
The $50M innovation and research park will be a mixed-use facility providing office, education/training, technology, and incubator space for the university and businesses and organizations that specialize in biomedical and life science research. It is on track to open August 2019.
The Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington (GLOW), Wilmington, NC
GLOW is a charter school affiliated with the Young Women’s Leadership Network. Thanks in part to NMTC financing, the school is constructing a 60,000 sq. ft. campus which will include 5 buildings: an administrative building, two milddle schools, a high school, and a multimedia maker space.
SPOTLIGHT: BOK Building, Philadelphia, PA
BOK is a richly layered space for small businesses, makers, community services, and more. Over 200 tenants currently occupy the building, of which approximately 25% live in the project’s zip code. The NMTC financed the adaptive reuse of a 218,000 sq. ft. former technical school into a small business hub focusing on local makers and artisans who utilize the technology and infrastructure of the technical school for their workshops. The full-square-block building is filled with furniture makers, restaurants, tattoo artists, product showrooms, jewelers, videographers, architects, fashion designers, product designers, artists, charitable organizations, and a pre-school — among others — in the previously empty classrooms.