ImpactAlpha, July 1 – More than 90% of the 188 units at The Westmont property in Indianapolis will go to low-income residents. The $31 million workforce housing project, built on a cleaned-up brownfield site, in Indianapolis will also create local jobs that pay $20 per hour.
Texas-based Woodforest National Bank and social impact-focused real estate fund manager CEI-Boulos Capital Management are making a $3 million equity investment in the project from their Opportunity Zone fund. The partners are backing The Westmont “because it was able to provide much needed affordable housing and workforce housing, and also revitalize a site that had significant environmental issues historically,” Woodforest’s Noelle St. Clair told ImpactAlpha.
A local nonprofit, EmployINDY, is helping train and hire nearby residents for the project.
The Westmont is the tenth investment from the $22 million Woodforest CEI-Boulos Opportunity Zone fund. The fund aims to provide equity financing for high-impact OZ projects across the 17 U.S. states where Woodforest has local bank branches.
The vehicle targets investments using the Opportunity Zone reporting framework from Georgetown University’s Beeck Center and the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance (see, “How and why to measure the impact of investments in Opportunity Zones”). “That framework really informs how we approach everything we do through our fund,” St. Clair said.
