Hershey Apartment Project Bolstered by Tax Credit

The Hershey Apartment project at 601 N Broadway St in Mount Pleasant received a credit award of $605,000 and a State HOME award of $500,000 to be used for “adaptive reuse” of family home for a total of 22 units.

The building was purchased in October and was identified as a possible site for affordable housing. The construction could begin as early as this coming spring, with the units ready by the end of 2025.

The Iowa Finance Authority Board of Directors today awarded a total of more than $10.6 million in federal housing tax credits to support the construction and rehabilitation of a total of 404 affordable rental homes for Iowans. The awards were made to 10 rental housing projects located in Burlington, Charles City, Davenport, Des Moines, Jefferson, Knoxville, Mount Pleasant, Oskaloosa and Spirit Lake.

The Internal Revenue Service makes an annual per capita allocation of federal tax credits to each state for the Federal Housing Tax Credit program. The Iowa Finance Authority is charged with allocating those credits to affordable housing developers. The developers who receive tax credits sell them to investors to generate equity for the housing developments.

The Iowa Finance Authority received 27 applications requesting nearly $30 million in housing tax credits in the 2024 tax credit round. IFA had a total of approximately $10.8 million available to allocate. The actual awards total nearly $106 million because the credits are committed annually for a 10-year period.

In addition to the federal housing tax credit awards, the projects received a total of $4.8 million in HOME program funds and a total of $2 million in National Housing Trust Fund and Senior Living Revolving Loan Funds.

The full awards list is available here

Additional information:

Further Discussion on Repurposing Hershey Hall

Iowa Wesleyan Buildings Repurposed for Affordable and Temporary Housing