Moving On After the final failure, the group went to Contra Costa County to bridge the gap between the 9 percent and the 4 percent bonds. The county increased its CDBG and HOME contribution from $1 million to $2.5 million and committed $100,000 to the project for 28 years. BRIDGE used a private placement structure with Wells Fargo, getting a tax-exempt multifamily bond in 1998. “We needed layer-cake financing to justify the construction costs and low rent,” says Carol Galante, president of BRIDGE. “We would not have been able to keep the rents low without this financing.”
“BRIDGE is a long-standing customer,” says Margaret Schrand, vice president/manager of the San Francisco community lending department of Wells Fargo Bank. “If I know a borrower and feel they have knowledge, experience, and integrity and then look at their credit and feel satisfied, we tend to want to do repeat business.”
Though the problems with the 9 percent tax credit initially stalled the project, once the financing was put together through Wells Fargo and the city, things went as planned. The apartments opened in August 2000 after 18 months of construction.
It could not have happened any sooner for Gonzalez, who plans to stay in Coggins Square until she saves enough money to buy a home. “It was worth going through the application process to get in here,” she says. “It was such a relief to move into a new place with a swimming pool, a playground, and washer and dryers on site.”
