New $25M fund to help make reinvestment projects in communities across the Delaware Valley a reality

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T.D. Bank poured $25 million into a new equity fund earmarked to support low-to-moderate communities across the Delaware Valley as part of its Community Reinvestment Act requirements.

The fund, known as the 481 CEI-Boulous Impact Fund LLC, will be equity investments expected to be between $2 million to $8 million to help close the funding gap for “high-impact” real estate projects.

Projects in the following counties in Pennsylvania may be eligible: Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery. Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem counties in New Jersey may also be eligible, as well as New Castle County in Delaware.

The fund manager is CEI-Boulous Capital Management LLC, which has operated similar funds for other banks such as Woodforest, which invested in the Sharswood development in Philadelphia several years ago.

Nancy Gephart, a former executive at SHIFT Capital in Philadelphia, is the new senior vice president of investments at CEI-Boulous Capital Management LLC.

Gephart said the group is looking to invest in projects that meet several goals, such as affordable housing or environmental sustainability.

“Projects that will revitalize areas that are vacant and blighted and really kind of create vibrancy in neighborhoods that haven’t seen investment historically,” Gephart said.

Potential successful projects are those with partnerships between nonprofits, local government, philanthropic institutions, private investors and community development finance organizations.

But first, the fund manager is gathering a social impact advisory board that will review proposed investments, which may include new construction or redevelopment of multi-family housing, retail, office or mixed-use developments.

The goal is to support projects that create jobs as well as contribute to affordable or workforce housing, revitalization or historic preservation projects, and environmentally sustainable and transit-oriented real estate developments.

And there’s some potential projects already in the pipeline, Gephart said.

“We’re already working to deploy some of the capital into projects we’ve identified,” she said.

The real estate fund would invest equity into a project, which does require the money to be repaid, but it’s over a 10-year-term.

“What makes this fund different is our ability to come in as equity partners, developers can still put debt on the property but we’ll come in with kind of a softer capital and be a patient partner while these developers put these projects [financing] together,” she said.

It’s not the first time TD Bank has invested in Community Reinvestment Act neighborhoods.

The company supported a $15.2 million investment of Low Income Housing Tax Credits for a 50-unit affordable housing development for seniors in Collingwood, Pennsylvania, according to its 2023 report to federal regulators.

In January 2024, T.D. Bank announced it would invest $20 billion as part of a three-year “Community Impact Plan” that would provide funding to support “lending, philanthropy, banking access and other activities for the benefit of diverse and underserved communities.” The company said the plan would target communities across 15 states and Washington, D.C., with $7.5 billion allocated to community lending and investment.

“We believe that investments in projects that deliver critical affordable housing can also have a ripple effect in supporting job creation and strengthening our communities,” said Keith Nisbet, senior vice president and head of the community capital group at TD Bank in a news release about the new real estate fund.