Dinsmore & Shohl LLP served as bond counsel on three recent portfolio deals totaling over $202 million that will preserve and modernize 1,280 affordable housing units across 26 Kentucky properties.

The most recent are for developers Winterwood Development, LLC (fourteen properties, 364 units, $52.9 million) and TCG Development Advisors LLC (nine properties, 454 units, $83.3 million), both of which closed this month. These follow last year’s portfolio deal with Cardinal Management, Ltd. and Wabuck Development Company, Inc. (three properties, 462 units, $66.6 million).

Dinsmore’s national housing group is adept at closing efficient portfolio deals. These projects would otherwise not be possible to complete if tackled individually and will assist families largely in rural Kentucky communities.

“The Kentucky Housing Corporation has implemented good policies that facilitate portfolio transactions,” said Mike Hynes, chief executive officer of Winterwood and president of the Kentucky Affordable Housing Coalition. “This has enabled our company to accelerate the much-needed revitalization of Kentucky’s existing affordable housing units for another generation.”

Dinsmore partner Lewis Diaz has executed a number of portfolio deals in Kentucky to improve affordable housing

“There’s tremendous benefit in pursuing these deals as a portfolio rather than individually because it facilitates the utilization of tax-exempt bonds which generates non-competitive low-income housing tax credits to preserve more units than is normally possible under the competitive tax credit program,” Diaz said. “The people who live in these properties need the preservation and modernization of their affordable housing in the near term, and we’re happy to have played a part in assisting the Kentucky Housing Corporation in ensuring the availability of safe, decent housing for the long term.”

Dinsmore Public Finance Housing Group Chair Sujyot Patel agreed.

“The ability to leverage the proximity of the projects in terms of management and resources provides added efficiencies for developers utilizing portfolio financings,” he said.

The Winterwood project, in conjunction with Greystone Affordable Development, will improve USDA properties across 12 cities, including Bardstown, Columbia, Monticello, Elkton, Eminence, Berea, Shelbyville, Pembroke, Cumberland, Dawson Springs, Vernon and Liberty. The TCG project, which also involved the Housing Authority of Hopkinsville (HAH), will provide renovated affordable housing at New Hope Properties in Hopkinsville, KY under HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.

Dinsmore assisted TCG and HAH by structuring the bond financing for a complex RAD conversion that involved the FHA financing of HAH’s entire public-housing portfolio on nine separate sites in the city of Hopkinsville.

“The capabilities of Dinsmore evidenced in the transaction will enable 454 public-housing families to live in fully rehabilitated like-new homes at no additional cost to them,” said TCG Managing Member Peter Behringer.

Dinsmore attorney Alexandra Rock joined Diaz and Patel in executing these deals on behalf of the firm’s national public finance group, which earlier this month was ranked first overall in Kentucky and in the top 20 nationwide by The Bond Buyer using Thomson Reuters transaction data. To date, Dinsmore attorneys have closed portfolio financings in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia.