JUST THREE MONTHS AWAY. White Center Market at 15th Avenue SW and Southwest 100th Street has became a reality thanks to tax credits, grants, and the ambitious Vong family.
On May 28, 2009, incense was lit, a ribbon was cut, speeches were made and the Vong family’s 26,500 square-foot White Center Square development was under way, on an acre-plus vacant lot on the corner of 15th Avenue SW and Southwest 100th Street. The $11 million project’s White Center Market, the Vongs’ Vietnamese restaurant, and at least three of eight smaller shops will open in July. They include a mortgage broker, jewelry store and hair salon. Five vacancies remain and they seek tenants.
Financing presented a problem for the Vongs, and they sought help from White Center Community Development Association. They connected the Vongs to the National Development Council via King County. The Council is under contract with the county.
“We are a financing technical assistance provider to cities and counties, and help governments figure out how to get communities to finance important development projects,” said Michelle Morlan, director of the National Development Council for King County. “They talked to many banks. The banks said it was way too risky for a small business to fund such a big project. That’s where we came in.
“We helped King County identify a financing source, and there was only one, the HUD Community Development Block Grant Program, a Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program. We put that together with a New Market Tax Credit Program, which incentivizes private investment in distressed low-income communities where the Feds want to see development happen. This area was identified in 2003 as a distressed Census tract.”
U.S. Bank invested upfront and received the New Markets Tax Credit. That means they will get a portion of their income taxes written every year for seven years.
Morlan said that in 2003, White Center had a 38.7-percent poverty rate, and an unemployment rate 3.4 times higher (That’s “times” not “points”) than the national unemployment rate. One in three household’s first language is not English.
The National Development Council was instrumental in helping acquire financing for the just-opened Educare Center, and the enormous Greenbridge housing project, all nearby. They are also helping fund the Pike Place Market renovation project.
