Community development group finds growing demand for its aid

by Robert Powell
Virginia Business
November 2005

The Richmond office of Local Initiatives Support Corp. made plans last year to slowly expand its services to other parts of the state. But the real estate market refused to wait on that go-slow strategy.

The newly renamed Virginia LISC now is working on projects 100 miles away from its downtown Richmond office. LISC is a national nonprofit organization that helps community development groups revitalize their neighborhoods. “Once it became known that LISC was expanding beyond Richmond, the phone began to ring with groups and localities exploring partnership on projects of all sizes and purposes throughout the Golden Crescent area of the state,” says Greta Harris, senior program director for Virginia LISC, referring to the population band stretching from Northern Virginia through Richmond to Hampton Roads.

LISC has been working in neighborhoods in Richmond and Chesterfield and Henrico counties since 1990. The organization offers a variety of technical and financial services that help community groups get projects going. These projects have included homes and apartments, child-care facilities, community centers and commercial buildings.

A study released this summer by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond showed that the city’s “Neighborhood in Bloom” program, a targeted revitalization movement supported by LISC, has helped raise property values and reduce crime in blighted areas.

When Richmond LISC officials talked to Virginia Business last year about changing its name and expanding its programs, they suggested that the expansion would be accomplished in small bits, starting with other communities in Central Virginia. “We’re not going to expand across the state in one big swoop,” Harris said at the time.

While LISC still does not serve the entire state, its reach has greatly expanded.

Recent projects have included:

• Working in Petersburg with the Petersburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority to convert an old downtown school into 30 apartments for seniors.

• Helping Virginia Supportive Housing in its efforts to convert an old bottling plant in Norfolk into a regional single room occupancy (SRO) facility with 60 efficiency apartments. SROs are transitional centers for homeless people. The Norfolk center, the first regional SRO in the country, will serve four Hampton Roads cities.

• Holding discussions in Virginia Beach with a developer on a proposed mixed-use development.

• Providing construction financing in Richmond to Highland Park Community Development Corp. for The Point at Chestnut Hill, a 39-unit, market-rate condominium project and negotiating with a developer for a mixed-used condominium development in the city’s Carver community.

Alice Tousignant, executive director of Richmond-based Virginia Supportive Housing, says her organization has used LISC’s services to jump-start a number of projects “We were excited to learn that they were expanding because we are, too,” she says.

Virginia LISC helps community development projects financially by providing hard-to-find risk capital to get projects under way. Through National LISC, the state office offers grants and loans, arranges below-market financing and helps secure equity investments. These early investments leverage the projects by helping to attract other investors. LISC also shares its technical and operational expertise with community groups.

Virginia LISC raises money in three-year campaign cycles. It is more than halfway along in its current $6.5 million fund-raising campaign.

The money will be used implement its strategic plan for the next five years. That plan includes financing the development of more than 2,500 housing units and more than 100,000 square feet of space for commercial buildings and community facilities. Virginia LISC also plans to use Virginia Impact Capital, a recently incorporated charitable, nonprofit organization, to help finance new housing in distressed neighborhoods.