NEW YORK, NY – April 4, 2024 – NYC Regional Community Development (NYCR-CDE) is pleased to announce the closing of $15 million in New Markets Tax Credit financing to assist the construction of a new 88,000 square foot charter school in the South Bronx.  This is the seventh charter school that has utilized New Markets Tax Credit funding from NYCR-CDE and the fifth in the Bronx.   The new school will be home to approximately 1,145 students in Pre-K to 8th grade and be run by DREAM, one of the city’s leading charter school networks.

DREAM charter school network traces its beginnings to 1991, when a group of volunteers transformed an abandoned lot in East Harlem into two baseball diamonds for the neighborhood youth.  That effort grew into Harlem RBI, an award-winning sports-based youth development organization that offered afterschool and summer programming, becoming a model and symbol of the power of play for young people everywhere.  Thirty-one years later, DREAM today serves more than 2,000 children across East Harlem and the South Bronx through its network of six charter schools.  At DREAM, 99% of students are Black and/or Hispanic; 88% qualify for free or reduced lunch; and 29% have identified special needs.  Nearly half of DREAM alumni are first-generation college students and DREAM Charter High School has a 99% acceptance rate into college. 

The recently closed $15 million transaction utilized a portion of last year’s $55 million New Markets Tax Credit award from the U.S. Department of Treasury to NYCR-CDE.  To receive a New Markets Tax Credit allocation award, NYCR-CDE was required to demonstrate a mission and track record of providing investment capital for low-income communities.

Since 2016, NYCR-CDE has received six separate annual tax credit awards totaling $265 million.  Examples of previous fundings include:

• Construction of the National Urban League’s new headquarters in Harlem
• Redevelopment of both the Bedford Union Armory in Brooklyn and the Armory Track & Field Center in Washington Heights
• Expansion of St. John’s Episcopal Hospital Center in Far Rockaway
• Construction of seven charter schools
• $23 million for the DREAM Charter School in the South Bronx
• $20 million for Achievement First Linden Middle School in Brooklyn
• $20 million for KIPP NYC in the Bronx
• $18 million for Neighborhood Charter School in the Bronx
• $18 million for Promise Academy II in East Harlem
• $15 million for Comp Sci High in the Bronx

The New Markets Tax Credit Program was created by Congress in 2000 in an effort to stimulate private investment and economic growth in low-income neighborhoods and rural communities that lack access to capital. Historically, low-income communities often have difficulty attracting investment.  The program aims to break this cycle of disinvestment by attracting the private investment necessary to reinvigorate struggling local economies. Private capital is incentivized by providing federal income tax credits to investors in exchange for making equity investments in low-income neighborhoods.