YarrowBay has a new financial partner in The Village’s development in Black Diamond.
The partnership was announced during the Dec. 17 City Council meeting that Crown Community Development will be partnering with YarrowBay to help finance The Villages’ infrastructure.
“We are still the developer, and nothing has changed in that regard as far as our staffing or relationship with the city,” said YarrowBay CEO Brian Ross. “We just have a new financing partner.”
Crown Community Development is a part of Henry Crown and Company, a Chicago-based company founded in 1923.
According to Crown Community Development Vice President Theresa Frankiewicz, this will be the company’s first land investment in the Pacific Northwest.
Along receiving a public announcement of YarrowBay’s new partnership, the City Council also voted unanimously to approve the master planned development funding agreement and approved, three votes to two, anew Water Supply and Facilities Funding Agreement.
The master planned development funding agreement is a “longstanding financial assurity,” said Ross, which allows the city to be reimbursed by YarrowBay for staffing, consultation or construction relating to The Village’s development for the next year.
This agreement is backed by a $1 million letter of credit, which assures that Black Diamond will be reimbursed.
The new water supply and facilities funding agreement established a new letter of credit with Crown Community Development for $2.8 million, money that will mostly be used in improving Black Diamond’s springsource in the future, according to Ross.
“The city now has two letters of credit – the one that has been around for years and a new one that satisfies the assignment provision in the Water Facility Agreement,” Ross said. “So the city is in much better shape now than in the past, because in the past there was no financial assurance on this issue.”
Infrastructure construction will soon begin in Black Diamond in several hundred lots in the first quarter of 2016, Ross said.
This will pave the way for homebuilders to start developing in 2017, Ross continued, and the city will likely have residents moving in by the 2017 holiday season.
