Economic Development Blog

Stimulus funding - and finding access to it - remains unclear to many corporate real estate-related companies and municipalities.  So I want to point you today to a great ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) article by a firm that is a supporter of CoreNet Global.

One of the many financial firms exhibiting at last months CoreNet Global Summit was Ehlers, a public finance consulting firm I have had the privilege to work with over the years. In its Fall 2009 newsletter (available at http://www.ehlers-inc.com/newsletter.php), Ehlers gives a concise and easy to understand description of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for Local Governments.

To the commercial real estate professional, this article will provide you with an overview of how these incentives work, particularly The Build America Bonds Program, which is being offered for two years and provides a permanent federal subsidy of 35 percent of the interest expense of qualifying bond issues. These bonds are being used for a wide-variety of public infrastructure improvements: from road projects to school construction bonds. The newsletter also have a good article about the “Return of Development” from the perspective of municipal governments.

For more information, visit www.ehlers-inc.com.