Under Agenda 10.A. of the June 25, 2024 Board of County Commissioner Meeting, a Rural Neighborhoods Inc. (RNI) representative was invited to share an update about the financing of the affordable and senior housing project. In our April 2024 newsletter, I provided information on the approval of a second amendment to the developer agreement, which contained a third extension to May 30, 2024, for the developer to secure project funding commitments. Later, upon their request, the Board granted RNI a fourth extension until June 30, 2024.
Commissioner Saunders introduced the item at the recent Board Meeting by declaring that the developers successfully met the funding conditions for the housing project before the June 30th deadline. According to the RNI representative, the HUD National Loan Committee approved the financing for the project on June 18, 2024, which unanimously resulted in their issuance of a June 20th funding commitment letter. He clarified that Prudential Financial Inc., the construction lender and permanent source of financing for the project, required HUD to ratify the loan before they provide the approximately $58M funding commitment.
They are now moving the project to a simultaneous closing of all financing, which will take approximately 75 days. If there are no problems during this stage, they should be able to meet the closing deadline set up by Prudential and HUD by September 20, 2024.
While the project seems to be moving in the right direction, I am still concerned about the lack of complete funding documentation. During the previous discussion, I requested all documentation related to other transaction contributors, including agreements with the Community Foundation and the Moorings for $10 million in funds. Commissioner McDaniel reiterated my requests for information at the BOCC meeting. Mr. Kirk, RNI developer, was still uncertain when the appropriate documents would be available for our review.
I have urged the developer to provide our office with additional information and complete funding documentation containing detailed allocations and project development plans as soon as possible. The Board requested a timeline of the project be provided but took no further action during the meeting. We anticipate updates regarding the final agreements for the State and Local Grants at the last meeting in July. We will continue to monitor this project.