McCormack Baron Salazar celebrates 40 years of transforming communities for families and children
2013 marks 40 years since McCormack Baron Salazar began its pioneering work in urban revitalization.
Continuing with that pioneering spirit, 2013 was also a year for expansion, innovation and invention in our approach to rebuilding communities for the 21st century. We expanded our national development footprint into the Virgin Islands and Oklahoma. We strengthened our management services through the adoption of an innovative training and employee development program and increased our capacity for fee-managing third-party properties. We have rebranded and expanded the services of our sustainability and renewable energy affiliate, Sunwheel Energy + Sustainability. And, we reaffirmed our commitment to our existing neighborhoods through continuing to improve our management services, expanding our work with our human capital partners, and finding new ways to extend the reach and impact of our work.
We are pleased to share our many accomplishments of 2013.
McCormack Baron Salazar celebrated the following groundbreakings and grand openings of communities across the country:
Groundbreakings:
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North Sarah Phase II, Saint Louis, Missouri
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Taylor Yard, Los Angeles, California
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Rio Vista, Los Angeles, California
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I. Jerome and Rosemary Flance Early Childhood Education Center, Saint Louis, Missouri
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Iberville, New Orleans, Louisiana
Grand Openings:
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Better Family Life Cultural Educational and Business Center, St. Louis, Missouri
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Mission Plaza Apartments, Grand Re-Opening, Los Angeles, California
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West Park Apartments, Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Legends Park North Senior Living, Memphis, Tennessee
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Louis E. Brown Senior Living, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
In addition, we were part of a team in Los Angeles that received a HUD Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant. Oakland Heights received one of the Kansas City Business Journal Capstone Awards in Real Estate. Arlington Grove was selected as an Affordable Housing Finance Reader’s Choice Finalist. Legends Park in Memphis, Tennessee was awarded the Excellence in Partnership award as part of the Tennessee’s Best Awards presented at the 2013 Governor’s Housing Summit. Legends also received one of the Inaugural Building Memphis Awards.
MBS Urban Initiatives CDE closed on a New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Qualified Low-Income Community Investments for the Wheatley School (a Recovery School District charter school) in New Orleans, LA, and served as a consultant in the closing of the Flance Early Childhood Education Center at Murphy Park in St. Louis, MO.
In addition, our NMTC investment, the 14th Street Mall project in St. Louis, Missouri, received the Missouri Gateway Region Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council-Growing Green Award. Another NMTC-financed project, the Big Brothers Big Sisters Building, received the National Trust Community Investment Corporation/US Bank – Community Impact Award.
New Markets Grand Openings:
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Bullitt Center (The Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design & Construction), Seattle, Washington
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Producer’s Choice Soy Energy Biodiesel Plant, Moberly, Missouri
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Better Family Life Cultural Educational and Business Center, St. Louis, Missouri
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BJC HealthCare Administrative Office Building, St. Louis, Missouri
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Pullman Park, Chicago, Illinois
McCormack Baron Asset Management continued to pursue its acquisition strategy in the Salt Lake City area while providing services for almost 30,000 apartments across the country. Recognizing significant opportunities to improve performance in the McCormack Baron Salazar-developed portfolio, McCormack Baron Asset Management successfully refinanced 9 projects, with another dozen under evaluation for refinance, restructuring or resyndication opportunities in the coming year.
McCormack Baron Ragan Management Services continued to aggressively expand their portfolio in 2013 while simultaneously increasing the organization’s capacity for growth. In addition to managing multiple lease ups in St. Louis, Miami, Tulsa, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and the US Virgin Islands market places, MBR was appointed third party fee-manager for approximately 3,800 apartments throughout the country. McCormack Baron Ragan’s new third party fee-managed communities include private market rate and commercial developments, affordable housing communities, and public housing communities owned and sponsored by the cities of Los Angeles, Saint Louis, and Little Rock. MBR continued to seek new ways to provide additional value added services to their clients via the expansion of McCormack Baron University with new curriculum, delivery of energy score cards to clients, rollout of an enhanced online marketing platform, and implementation of a new robust expense management and procurement process designed to maximize each community’s financial performance.
Sunwheel Energy Partners has restructured as Sunwheel Energy + Sustainability to reflect an expansion beyond solar energy development to include green building and neighborhood certification and sustainability consulting. In 2013, the Sunwheel team helped more than 300 new McCormack Baron Salazar residences earn LEED, Green Communities, and Energy Star certification and completed water and energy conservation projects across the MBS portfolio of existing properties. For this work, Sunwheel and McCormack Baron Salazar were honored with a Mayor’s Sustainability Award at the St. Louis City Sustainability Summit, and were recognized as inaugural Partners of the U.S. HUD/DOE Better Buildings Challenge for Multifamily Residential Housing. The new Sunwheel leadership team is excited to seek new partnerships and opportunities in 2014 while maintaining McCormack Baron Salazar’s leadership position as a green, urban community developer.
The achievements listed above would not have been possible without the dedication of our employees, partners, and residents. Thank you for all the hard work that makes the dream of home into reality for families across the country.