Helping preserve landmark San Francisco affordable housing.

San Franciscans recently marked the completion of extensive renovations of the Martin Luther King-Marcus Garvey Square Cooperative Apartments, a landmark affordable housing project in the city's Fillmore District. A rededication ceremony brought together the wide range of partners and interests involved in this important community reinvestment project, including its developer Related California, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Freddie Mac, the development's co-op board and Citi Community Capital.

The renovations represent a major turning point for a ground-breaking 1960's low-income co-op development, which had struggled to maintain its buildings to the standard required by HUD for certain subsidies. With those subsidies nearly rescinded in 2008, the co-op board tapped advisers to develop a plan, secure funding and manage a major renovation and upgrades.

Citi Community Capital played a key role in helping the co-op board leverage an initial $5 million loan from the SFRA to secure full funding -- more than $40 million -- for the project, using a financing strategy that preserved the residents' ownership stake in the housing. That funding allowed for crucial repairs to the 13 buildings/211 units across the two-block development, such as roof and window replacement and complete interior rehabilitation to floors, kitchen cabinets and appliances, and bathrooms.

"This is really a transformation from something that was in dire need of repair to something that is beautiful and neighborhood-stabilizing," said Steven Fayne, Managing Director, Citi Community Capital in a video on Citi's YouTube channel. "This will be a major factor in the stabilization of this whole Western Addition [of San Francisco]."