Enterprise Community Development Adds to Team
Enterprise Community Development has named two new members to its senior leadership. Ben Hyman has joined as senior operations manager, and Nii Sowah will step into the role of vice president of community impact strategies in early September.
Hyman serves as a partner to the CEO and other Enterprise Community Development leaders. He is responsible for aligning mission and goals while serving as a thought and execution lead on issues of organizational strategy and operations. Hyman will oversee critical projects and priorities.
Prior to joining Enterprise Community Development, he served as the director of special projects for the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. Before that, he was executive director of Pigtown Main Street, a community development nonprofit in Southwest Baltimore. He also served as a special assistant in the Baltimore Office of the City Council President.
Prior to joining Enterprise, Sowah served as assistant commissioner of community services for Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development, where he oversaw operations for the city’s Head Start programs, childcare academies, and its Office of Homeless Services. In addition, he served as the director of the family stability and economic success programs at the Center for Urban Families dedicated to accelerating social and economic opportunity, as well as advocating for policies that promote equity and racial justice.
One of the nation’s largest nonprofit developers, Enterprise Community Development has a portfolio of 110 properties that provides almost 13,000 homes serving 22,000 residents in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Alta Housing Hires Industry Veteran
Carlos Castellanos has been named vice president, real estate development, at Alta Housing, a community-based affordable housing developer headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. He will be responsible for all acquisitions and development activity.
Castellanos has over 25 years of affordable housing development experience and, most recently, served as director of housing development for MidPen Housing Corp., a nonprofit based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He expanded the organization’s reach in East Bay cities by being involved in 11 affordable housing developments over the past five years. Prior to MidPen Housing, Castellanos was the director of real estate development for the East Bay Asian Local Development Corp.
Since 2016, Castellanos has served on the board of directors of the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California and is a member of the nonprofit East Bay Housing Organizations and nonprofit San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. He also serves as a regional policy adviser to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area region’s council of governments.
Alta Housing, which recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary, has a significant pipeline of new projects with more than 450 new residential units in various stages of planning and development throughout the Bay Area.
Earlier this summer, it broke ground on a 71-unit residential development in Mountain View, which will provide independent living for a mix of single- and two-person households earning between 50% to 70% of the area median income. Fifteen of the units are reserved for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The new community is slated for fall 2021 completion.
Standard Communities Names Managing Director of East Coast Production
Matt Sislen has joined Standard Communities, the affordable housing division of Standard Cos. He is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
As managing director of East Coast production, Sislen is responsible for the continued growth of Standard’s portfolio of multifamily assets throughout the region, with a focus on the Mid-Atlantic.
Standard owns more than 1,700 units of affordable housing in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The firm recently completed the largest tax-exempt bond and low-income housing tax credit-financed preservation of affordable housing transaction in Washington, D.C., history.
Sislen joins Standard from Audubon Enterprises, an affordable housing advisory firm that he co-founded in 2012 to expand and improve the supply of housing opportunities in the D.C. metro area. Under his leadership, Audubon participated in dozens of municipally supported transactions, successfully securing over $1 billion of funding for affordable housing developments to create and preserve over 3,500 units.
Earlier in his career, Sislen, 37, served as vice president and CFO of Dantes Partners; manager of acquisitions and finance at East of the River Community Development Corp.; and an associate at The Reznick Group.
The NRP Group Promotes Jenkin
The NRP Group has promoted Alastair Jenkin to senior vice president of development for Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston.
In his new role, Jenkin adds the important Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area to his geographical responsibilities, overseeing all aspects of the development process for both market-rate and workforce housing communities. Previously, his responsibilities encompassed development in Austin and Houston.
He joined The NRP Group in 2017 as vice president of development.
The NRP Group continues to grow its development activity in Texas, with a current pipeline of market-rate and workforce housing now standing at 4,000 units, valued at $800 million in total project costs.
EAH Housing Promotes Welton Jordan
Welton Jordan has been promoted to chief real estate development officer at EAH Housing. He will be the first person in the 52-year history of the nonprofit to hold the position.
Jordan, who has been with EAH Housing for nearly seven years, is responsible for business development, real estate acquisition, rehabilitation, and new construction activities in California and Hawaii. In his new role, he will have an additional focus on board development, corporate strategy, and growth. He presides over an active pipeline of 60 deals totaling nearly $2 billion while leading a team of more than 22 development professionals, including several newly created positions such as director of development and director of portfolio finance and policy.
Established in 1968, EAH Housing is one of the largest nonprofit housing development and management organizations in the western United States. EAH develops low-income multifamily housing, manages more than 210 properties in 75 municipalities in California and Hawaii, and plays a leadership role in local, regional, and national housing advocacy efforts.
Fannie Mae Makes Moves
Jeffery Hayward has been appointed to the newly created position of executive vice president and chief administrative officer and Michele Evans has been named executive vice president and head of multifamily at Fannie Mae.
Hayward will lead the company’s affordable housing; environmental, social, and governance (ESG); human resources; diversity and inclusion; and enterprise workplace teams.
The new chief administrative officer role reflects Fannie Mae’s ongoing commitment to affordable housing, diversity and inclusion, and leading the industry with its ESG efforts, said the company.
Hayward joined Fannie Mae in 1987 and served as executive vice president and head of multifamily since 2012.
Evans has been with the company since 1992 and most recently served as multifamily’s COO. In that role, Evans helped guide the group’s digital transformation, automate its pricing and underwriting, and launch its credit risk transfer business.
KeyBank Expands West Coast Presence
Andrew Nathenson has been appointed senior banker at KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment. He is based in San Francisco and is responsible for continuing KeyBank’s affordable housing platform expansion on the West Coast.
Nathenson has more than 13 years of experience in affordable housing finance. Prior to joining KeyBank, he served as a vice president in loan origination at Citi Community Capital, where he closed $5.7 billion in acquisition, construction, and permanent financing for affordable multifamily projects in California and other markets across the U.S. Previously, he served as an acquisition analyst at The Related Cos., where he participated in the acquisition and recapitalization of 16 affordable projects.
Tidwell Group Announces Moves
Ryder M. Mathias, CPA, has joined Tidwell Group as its newest tax partner.
He has more than 10 years of experience in public accounting, providing tax preparation and advisory services to the affordable housing and commercial real estate industries and specializing in real estate taxation and nonprofit organizations.
Mathias will be part of the firm’s Birmingham, Ala., office while working from Charlotte, N.C.Before joining Tidwell Group, he was a senior tax manager at a large accounting firm in Charlotte.
In another move, Debbie Dancy has been named national director of special projects.
She will support Tidwell Group’s human resources department in talent management, recruiting, training, and leadership development. Dancy will also work with the tax and audit departments on scheduling, team comparability, hiring, and other initiatives.
Tidwell Group is a full-service accounting and consulting firm specializing in the real estate and construction industries.