EQUITY PARTNERS
RENAISSANCE EQUITY PARTNERS
Investing | Partnering | Revitalizing
There are those who look at things the way
they are, and ask why...I dream of things
that never were, and ask why not?
– Robert F. Kennedy
Renaissance Equity Partners
Our Dream
A former SEC a attorney, Bob dreamt of things that never were and asked, “Why Not?” Bob dreamt of the Martin Luther King Avenues and Main Streets of the USA having similar access to investment capital as Wall Street and said: Why Not?
Today, four decades after he joined the SEC as a rookie attorney, Bob now leads a team of experienced economic development professionals unequivocally committed to attracting and managing the investment capital required to ensure the successful completion of important economic development projects that create jobs, bring quality housing and important goods and services to long-overlooked neighborhoods.
Our Firm
Renaissance Equity Partners is an economic development advisory and fund management firm with a focus on emerging domestic communities. We offer a comprehensive suite of quality investment fund management and advisory services to ensure the success of important economic development projects and initiatives. Our team has the unique and specialized expertise required to evolve community revitalization proposals and plans from exciting aspirations into successful operating businesses and real estate projects that create jobs, strengthen neighborhoods, serve customers and tenants, and produce cash flow. The innovative use of economic development finance tools, such as the HUD Section 108 program, tax-exempt bond financing, Historic Tax Credits, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and the New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) program are integral components of our investment strategies.
Our Services
We offer a suite of economic development advisory and investment fund management services to assist public and private sector economic development organizations and practitioners’ access and/or manage sophisticated economic development initiatives.
• Portfolio Management. We assist community development lenders to manage real estate loan portfolios with the maximum levels of efficiency and efficacy. Our services include the design and management of the Loan Servicing Center. REP controls and manages the Renaissance New Markets Fund, a U.S. Department of Treasury designated Community Development Entity, and the Renaissance HBCU Opportunity Fund, a federally designated Opportunity Zone Fund.
• Real Estate Development Finance Advisory. We assist both for-profit and non profit developers to creatively access a variety of economic development finance incentives to ensure the successful development and long-term success of important real estate development projects. Such programs include the U.S. Department of Treasury’s New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) and Opportunity Zone programs, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Historic Tax Credit Program, HUD’s 221(d)(4), and 220 multi-family mortgage programs, among others. REP has significant specialized experience and expertise in the intricacies of the NMTC program. Our team has accessed the NMTC program to help finance important community economic development projects across the country.
• Economic Development Training. We provide both experienced and novice economic development practitioners with the expertise required to plan, develop and administer sophisticated economic development initiatives.
Our Successes
Portfolio Management
• Assisting a municipal community development agency manage a $1 billion + real estate loan portfolio funded with HUD Community Development Block Grant and HOME funds. Our services include staffing and operating a Mortgage Loan Servicing Call Center that maintains relationships with and disseminates critical information to over 8,000 borrowers.
​
• Assisting a U.S. Department of Treasury designated Community Development Equity to manage a $128 million community development loan portfolio capitalized in significant part by the monetization of New Markets Tax Credits. Our services include loan underwriting, servicing, investor reporting, and compliance services.
• Renaissance New Markets Fund, our U.S. Department of Treasury designated Community Development Entity collaborated with institutional investors to access the NMTC program to provide flexible below-market-rate financing to a charter school in inner city Houston, Texas, a family-oriented retail/dining venue in rural Alabama and a major health care facility in Los Angeles, California.
• Renaissance HBCU Opportunity Fund, our federally designated Opportunity Zone Fund, was named to the first annual Forbes Top 20 list of Opportunity Fund Catalysts.
Real Estate Development Finance Advisory Services
• Assisting Paul Quinn College, a growing and highly respected Dallas, Texas college, develop an innovative financing strategy to fund the adaptive reuse development of a long-vacant and boarded structure into a state-of-the-art mixed-use building. The 40,000 sq. ft. building contains student housing, classrooms, faculty offices, a dance studio, and a 1,500-person capacity competition-quality gymnasium. Financing sources included debt from two Community Development Financial Institutions and NMTC allocations from two Community Development Entities.
• The Orangeburg City Council selected a development team organized by Renaissance Equity Partners to redevelop a 1.15-acre site of blighting city-owned parcels into a “state of the art” mixed-use community featuring student housing, faculty housing, commercial space, and a new home for the South Carolina Civil Rights Museum called, Railroad Corner, the site sits directly across from two HBCUs, South Carolina State and Claflin Universities.
Paul Quinn College
Railroad Corner In Orangeburg, South Carolina
Economic Development Training
• As subcontractors to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s CDFI Fund, REP provided minority financial institutions with the expertise required to competitively participate in the NMTC program. We drafted curricula conducted two 1 ½-day classroom-style training sessions and traveled the country providing individualized, “on-site” training and technical assistance.
Our HBCU University District Initiative
REP is appreciative of the contributions of the USA’s 104 Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) to the growth and prosperity of our country. More than 50% of our nation’s Black school teachers and 70% of Black physicians and dentists earned degrees at HBCUs. Over half of the nation’s Black women with PhDs
in scientific fields received undergraduate degrees from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, or Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana ranks #1 in placing Blacks in medical schools.
Our HBCU University District Initiative, administered in collaboration with the Advance !, a non profit 501(C)(3) organization, directs the technical assistance and investment capital required to evolve the often-neglected streets and neighborhoods surrounding HBCUs into vibrant University Districts replete with attractive affordable and workforce housing and purveyors of quality goods and services.
Community Development Finance Loan Fund Initiative
Our, soon-to-be-announced, REP Community Development Finance Loan Fund (the Fund) will help enhance the economic vitality of long-neglected urban and rural communities. The Fund will offer creative debt financing solutions that will help grow small businesses, create living-wage jobs and support the development of affordable and workforce housing as well as important neighborhood amenities, including grocery stores and health care providers. Examples of debt products to be offered include small business loans for operating businesses and pre-development loans and mezzanine financing for real estate projects.
Our Faith Based Initiative
Partners with churches and other faith based organizations to redevelop their underutilized properties into much needed workforce and affordable housing and community facilities, such as healthcare and childcare providers.
Our Team
Renaissance Equity Partners is led by a leadership team of experienced economic development finance professionals.
