Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services Year-End Wrap-up: Grady Health System

Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services team is a practice specializing in New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), and other financing, capped off 2020 with over $24.3 million in NMTC financing for Grady Health System’s Center for Advanced Surgical Services (CASS), a community facility located adjacent to Grady Memorial Hospital’s main campus in Atlanta, Georgia. Through the NMTC closing with CCG Community Partners, Carver Financial Corporation, Community Hospitality Healthcare Services, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Truist Community Capital, and Urban Action Community Development, Grady is expanding its outpatient and surgical services by constructing an additional 225,000 square feet of clinical space.

By expanding its physical footprint, Grady will offer eight outpatient operating rooms, four endoscopy rooms, and surgical clinics, including orthopedics, general, ENT and oral surgery, as well as the Hospital’s Cancer Center and Eye Center. The project also includes new imaging, pharmacy, lab, central sterile supply and common support spaces for the new facility, and it will allow Grady to separate inpatient and outpatient services. The project will also create approximately 590 construction jobs and support 5,824 full-time equivalent jobs in this Low-Income Community (LIC), designated as a Federal Medically Underserved Area (MUA), with 34% poverty and an unemployment rate of 12.9%.

“This project will allow Grady to expand its outpatient services by nearly 60%,” said a Managing Director in Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services team. “This expansion is critical for a patient population 90% of whom are low-income and 40% do not have access to health insurance.”

The financial closing of the Grady Health System investment ended a year full of transformative deals totaling $116.7 million of NMTC lending across the U.S., including:

• Judson Mill Redevelopment, Greenville, SC – $16.5 million of NMTC financing, provided by The Innovate Fund, supported the renovation of a 107,269 square foot warehouse building into a mixed-use facility including the local non-profit, Feed & Seed, whose mission is to increase food security for all South Carolinians, health and wellness, and retail uses. The investment will support 2,376 people with access to community goods and services, in an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) Distressed Area that exhibits a poverty rate of 44.2%. The completion of the project will help accelerate the $125+ million redevelopment of the greater Judson Mill campus;
• Tippah County Hospital, Ripley, MS – $24.9 million NMTC financing, provided by Capital One Community Reinvestment Fund, Hope Enterprise Corporation, Munistrategies, and Three Rivers CDE, allowed non-metropolitan Tippah County Hospital, to construct a new 56,000 square foot Critical Access Hospital in a Federal MUA, to include emergency services, surgical suites and 25 in-patient care rooms. Serving over 13,000 rural LIC residents, the investment also supports the creation of 278 direct jobs in a joint ARC and Delta Regional Authority Distressed Area with 28% poverty; and
• Fairfield County Government Complex, Winnsboro, SC – $12 million of NMTC financing, provided by South Carolina Community Loan Fund, supported the historic rehabilitation of Mt. Zion Institute into a 51,000 square foot mixed-use facility to include office space for Fairfield County’s administrative services, parks and recreation department, sheriff’s department, a 911 call center, and community goods and services uses. Other financing partners include Wells Fargo, Sixty-West, Foss & Co., and Reinvestment Fund, through Federal and State Historic Tax Credits, State Abandoned Building Tax Credits, and bridge debt. In addition to supporting 181 direct jobs, the investment services 5,460 LIC residents, in an area with 33.1% poverty, 44.5% Median Family Income, and 15.8% unemployment.

Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services team has structured and facilitated NMTC investments totaling $877.5 million to 72 businesses and non-profits across the United States. The funds leverage over $1.8 billion in combined project costs. To date, our Strategic Financing portfolio has created 20,796 direct jobs, served over 581,000 residents through its non-profit investments, and helped create over 7.6 million square feet of new and improved commercial and industrial real estate spaces.

“Through its combination with Cherry Bekaert in 2020, the Strategic Financing Services team not only continued its mission of improving low income communities through high-impact investments, but also expanded its services into new geographies and tax advantaged capital products,” said a manager in Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services team.

About Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services

Cherry Bekaert’s Strategic Financing Services team specializes in New Markets Tax Credits, helping non-profit and for-profit organizations access capital and transform communities. In addition to managing $545 million of NMTC assets, and drafting over $1 billion in successful NMTC Applications, since 2004 they have played an instrumental role in securing funding for over $1.3 billion for community and economic development projects across the United States.