Enterprise closes on debut project of Let’s Build Accelerator

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Enterprise Community Development, an affiliate of Enterprise Community Partners and the largest affordable housing owner and developer in the mid-Atlantic market, announced the first partner for its innovative Let’s Build Accelerator (LBA).

Housing provider Durrani Development has been selected to partner with Enterprise Community Development on a new affordable, multi-family apartment building in Washington’s Ward 8. This is the first project of this unique joint development model that addresses the various challenges, including access to capital and development capacity, faced by non-institutionally resourced real-estate developers.

Enterprise Community Development, which is one of the top five largest nonprofit affordable housing providers in the country based on portfolio size, launched LBA in late 2021. The program recognizes the challenges, perspectives and opportunities of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and community- and faith-based developers and allows partners from these groups to access the capital and development capacity to grow their communities.

This first LBA project is a new construction, four-story, affordable, multi-family apartment building in Washington’s Randle Heights neighborhood east of the Anacostia River that features the removal of a vacant, dilapidated, former rehab facility. Durrani Development, a boutique real estate development firm focusing on affordable homes in the Washington metro region and Enterprise Community Development have joined forces on the development of a $47 million, 86-unit new construction, affordable housing community along Alabama Avenue in the District’s Ward 8.

This is Enterprise Community Development’s second investment in this area following its 2022 purchase of the Skyland Apartments.

Funding for the project comes from a $12.9 million Housing Production Trust Fund loan from the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), $23.1 million in tax exempt bonds from the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA), $9.8 million in permanent debt from R4 Capital and a total of $21.1 million from R4 Equity in LIHTC, DC LIHTC and solar credits.