JPMorgan Chase has committed $15 million – part of the company’s $150 million, five-year promise to the city – to support Detroit’s neighborhoods to help more residents benefit from the city’s continued economic recovery.
This new investment, which combines a $10 million, long-term, low-cost loan and $5 million in philanthropy, is expected to expand economic opportunity in these neighborhoods.
The commitments will enable the Strategic Neighborhood Fund to finance neighborhood projects that lack access to traditional financing, help attract additional capital, and over time provide local residents with more access to affordable housing, and goods and services where they live and work.
The announcement was made Thursday at the Detroit School of Digital Technology in southwest Detroit with senior JPMorgan Chase officials, and community and government leaders.
“With the help of partners like JPMorgan Chase, we are taking the successful strategies that worked in our downtown and Midtown areas and scaling it to bring physical improvements and development to neighborhoods across our city,” says Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. “We’ve got a lot more work to do and together. We’ll expand the good work being done to ensure more Detroiters are participating in the comeback.”
This new commitment is primarily targeted toward projects in commercial corridors across 10 neighborhoods, which were selected because they are crucial to extending Detroit’s economic recovery to more residents, support local small businesses, and provide quality jobs.
“There are so many clear signs of recovery across Detroit,” says Peter Scher, head of corporate responsibility at JPMorgan Chase. “The leadership of the mayor and the strategic focus of so many partners has truly been the key to this progress. We want this growth to benefit all Detroiters, especially those who have lived here their whole lives. That’s why we continue to invest our long-term capital in more neighborhoods.”
JPMorgan Chase started its investment in Detroit in 2014 when it helped launch two community development loan funds in Detroit – the Detroit Neighborhoods Fund and Chase Invest Detroit Fund through two Community Development Financial Institutions – Capital Impact Partners and Invest Detroit.
These funds, which included $40 million in low-cost debt from JPMorgan Chase, helped finance the construction of mixed-use real estate development, affordable multi-family housing, and high quality residential, commercial and retail developments, as well as provided flexible capital for small- and medium-sized businesses throughout Detroit.
In total, the funds have leveraged more than $230 million in additional funding from outside sources to support residential and commercial development. The loans helped create 828 residential housing units, 296,000 square feet of commercial space and created or saved 538 jobs, according to Chase.
During the same period since 2014, JPMorgan Chase’s Community Development Bank Group contributed nearly $150 million in New Markets and Historic Tax Credit transactions and construction loans to affordable housing projects throughout Detroit for the development of 747 units of affordable housing, as well as grocery stores, schools, and commercial space.
