Dayton fund gets $45M in targeted market tax credits

Winning the credits “is a great achievement, and this award strengthens our ability to attract investment capital from the private sector to fund development projects that continue the positive momentum underway in the Dayton region,” CityWide President Dan Kane said in a release Tuesday.

The credits “are an important tool for advancing development in under-resourced neighborhoods” said Karen DeMasi, vice president of community development for CityWide.

The credits have been used locally to boost development of the Third Street Dayton Recreation Complex, the YWCA women’s shelter, a Tech Town business park building, Goodwill, URS and other projects across the city, CityWide has said in the past. They also assisted the building of Dayton Children’s Hospital’s $28 million Center for Community Health and Advocacy.

“Community development entities across Ohio are working to drive economic opportunity in our communities. The new markets tax credit gives them the boost they need to attract private investment,” Brown said in his own announcement last week. “Today’s awards will help create good jobs and lift up local economies across Ohio.”

Similar awards went to other Ohio communities, according to Brown’s office:

The program was authorized by Congress in 2000 to encourage investment in census tracts located in low-income communities. The program allows individual and corporate investors to receive a credit against their federal income tax in exchange for making investments in financial intermediaries called “Community Development Entities.”

In this case, CityWide is such an entity, acting as a financial intermediary through which capital flows from investors to qualified businesses in a low-income community.

Congress so far has authorized 18 rounds of the tax credit allocations. This award represents the sixth federal allocation CityWide said it has received.