Episode 8 - Upcoming Transit-Oriented Development Projects

Join Marshall Macomber and Mary Scott Nabers on The Connection podcast as they explore the latest in transit-oriented development (TOD). Delving into TOD and affordable housing initiatives nationwide, they highlight the impact of federal funding on urban landscapes and community well-being. Discover the transformative potential of public-private partnerships (P3s) in driving innovation and addressing housing challenges. Don't miss this insightful discussion on shaping the future of our communities.

Meet the expert co-hosts:

Marshall Macomber is a visionary executive with a unique blend of business development, political strategy, communications, and public sector experience. He is founder and president of ThinkP3, a DC-based consulting and lobbying firm promoting innovative infrastructure solutions and alternative delivery models such as public-private partnerships (P3s). He played a key role in the 2021 infrastructure bill, initiating a vital USDOT program for state DOTs. Macomber is also a former Chief of Staff to Congressman Mike Rogers and holds an MBA from Georgetown University. A member of George Washington University’s ESG & Infrastructure Steering Group and other boards, he is a frequent speaker, panelist and moderator at industry events.  A driving passion for growing public transit, building walkable and equitable cities, decarbonizing America’s energy grid, and improving railroad infrastructure and operations gets him up in the morning and keeps him up at night.  
 

Mary Scott Nabers is President/CEO of Strategic Partnerships, Inc. (SPI). A recognized expert regarding P3s, she is the author of Collaboration Nation – How Public-Private Ventures Are Revolutionizing the Business of Government & Inside the Infrastructure Revolution – A Roadmap for Rebuilding America. Her articles have been published by media outlets, including Forbes, CNBC, The Hill, & POLITICO.  Mary was the President and General Manager of two media firms. In government, she served as the Commissioner representing Business at the Texas Employment Commission where she was a high-profile, proactive business advocate who founded The Texas Business Council. Then, Commissioner Nabers moved to the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s regulatory agency for the oil and gas industry, which at the time regulated approximately $65 billion of the state’s economy annually. 

Transcript

Marshall Macomber (00:00) 

Welcome back everybody to The Connection. It's a podcast of Government Market News. I'm Marshall Macomber, your cohost here at Think P3 in Washington, DC. And joining me as always, my cohost, Mary Scott Nabers in Austin. Hi, Mary. 

Mary Scott Nabers (00:15) 

Morning, Marshall. 

Marshall Macomber (00:16) 

Mary, we got to do a shameless plug here for what these exciting things we're doing Government Market News. Gov, you got to go to the website, gov — govmarketnews.com. Mary, what are we doing with this platform? 

Mary Scott Nabers (00:28) 

Now, I think we need to tell this audience about it because some of what we're going to talk about today can be found there and you're going to want more information. GovMarketNews is our newest initiative. It's about five and a half months old, but it is a platform that was created to serve two audiences, companies that sell to government and public officials who run government. 

And so every single day there's brand new news for both of those parties. And I think both of them care about what the others are reading. So we're trying to make it The Connection. And Marshall and I every other week are doing podcasts and we're talking about for public officials, where do you get the new funding? Where is it available? How do you get it? What kind of grants are being awarded? Because why? 

We're going to talk about all kinds of insights like that. And then for the private sector contractors who sell to government, we're going to talk about upcoming projects that have not even yet been announced. And so go to it, govmarketnews. And then if you have suggestions of anything you can't find there, you just let us know. 

Marshall Macomber (01:43) 

So on that note right there, Mary and I are trying to touch on lots of exciting things happening in this incredible infrastructure decade we're seeing across the country right now. Every community, all the federal funding, everything. And by the way, if you have ideas that you want to hear us talk about, please let us know. Reach out to us and we'll bring a guest on. We had somebody from Louisiana State Broadband Office last night, last time — fascinating discussion.  

The one we want to talk about today that we've heard a lot about is called transit oriented development. Those are fancy words, but it kind of means developing the land around transit stops in cities and out in the suburbs. And as we all know, the changes in work habits, a lot of people working from home. So the cities are really trying to invest in the transit systems. 

But group development around these stops so people have access to reliable, affordable transportation to get them to and from their work. Mary, FTA, Federal Transit Administration announced just, I think it was last week, maybe a week and a half ago, another, I think I have down here, $17 million for 20 projects across the country, right? Even you're in Austin, I think Austin got one too. 

Mary Scott Nabers (03:01) 

Austin did get one and that program that Marshall just mentioned, Transit Oriented Development, that program has got billions of dollars to allocate. And so they have just started putting out millions for planning efforts. And so of course, if you look at who got the awards to plan, you can also look to see what are they planning? 

And, you know, just absolutely, as I mentioned just a few, the City of Phoenix got a million- two, to plan. And what they're going to plan is they're going to pick a location where a station is, a public transportation station. And the money is to build affordable housing, small businesses, all kinds of amenities. 

To make it easier and more pleasant and more convenient for public transportation. So developers ought to go crazy over this, but so should all other kinds of contractors because it's going to be everything else from landscaping to technology to construction. 

Marshall Macomber (04:15) 

I mean, every city across America is looking at their downtown right now. Whether they've been booming, they're nowhere near transit, a lot of the big older cities definitely are looking, and they call these infill developments, right? They've got vacant land that the agency or a city might own. And they're saying, how can we leverage that? How can we monetize that, right? 

And the interesting thing is, and if you stop to think about it, it's understandable why every major city is trying to do something for affordable housing. It's because essential workers have got to be in the heart of the city. Fire, police, nurses, doctors, they've got to be there. And what's even as interesting as that is the fact that teachers, yeah. 

Mary Scott Nabers (05:08) 

You know, universities now are putting affordable housing on for teachers and professors and and the school districts. If you can believe this, many, many school districts are putting it right on campus for teachers. We don't pay teachers enough. So they're they're trying to provide benefits. We'll give you housing. And so Marshall, I'm going to come back and talk just about housing. 

Because there's billions available for that as well. We've never seen a time, Marshall, when the government was investing this much in its basic critical infrastructure. 

Marshall Macomber (05:48) 

I know, and I think it's an interesting way you put that basic critical infrastructure. Housing, I think is community infrastructure. It's essential community infrastructure. And it's to your point, there's a housing crisis in every community across the country. Borrowing costs are up, inflationary pressures are up, gas is up, utilities are up, and people are having a hard time. Hard time getting to their jobs, hard paying for gas. And that's why cities say, how are we going to compete? 

And I want to emphasize Mary's point about these types of grants. If you are a developer out there, or if you're looking to get into space, you got to know what's coming next. And these grants are a way to see what cities are thinking about and what they want to see happen. Right? I mean, that's at the end of the day, we want to know what's coming next out there. 

Mary Scott Nabers (06:33) 

Yeah. Yeah. And Marshall, let me just throw out a couple of places that got really big funds just to plan the projects. I think I mentioned Phoenix got a million-two. Colorado got two million. Columbus, Ohio got a million-two. Austin, Texas actually got a million-five for Cap Metro to plan a whole development around the Crestview station. 

Miami -Dade got a million 250 to build around the Compelletine line there. But there were 20. And so if you go to GovMarketNews, as Marshall and I said in the beginning, you can read about all of them. That's where it is. 

Marshall Macomber (07:24) 

We're going to bring one of these mayors on very soon. We've had mayor David Holt from Oklahoma City. Hope everybody saw that one. That was just a great discussion showing about what has happened in there. I think we're going to bring another, I won't say who it is yet, but we're going to have, we've got another mayor coming on maybe in the next two weeks to show some how the downtowns are, are, uh, they're trying to do public private partnerships, Mary. They're trying to bring in, right. 

Mary Scott Nabers (07:47) 

They're trying, but whatever, they're doing big projects. Whatever they call them, they're doing big projects. And we actually take that upcoming mayor this early next week, so it'll be on real soon. 

Marshall Macomber (08:00) 

You know, I got it. I have to put out another grant that is open right now. So if you're a city, if you're a city out there and generally you have some advisors that are helping work with you on some sort of transportation project, maybe it's a transit oriented development. Maybe you're thinking about some infill around your station stops. Maybe you got some extra land downtown you want to do something with from a transportation perspective right now at USDOT there is an open grant opportunity.  

It's called the Innovative Finance and Asset Concession Program. And what it is, is the Build America Bureau. And if you go Google this, you can type in Build America Bureau Innovative Finance Technical Assistance Program. That'll probably get you there. It's $57 million available right now, but only to May 10th. Only to May 10th. And you can get, you know, probably up to a million dollars. 

But it is more planning grants to help you hire advisors and what it helps the cities do you can do an what's called an asset scan to look at their existing assets to see if some of those assets could be monetized to help meet your objectives or you could hire advisors to do something a little more involved for maybe years maybe already have a program in mind you want to get some legal advice and financial advice that's what these planning grants these additional types of technical assistance grants what we'll do so you can see to Mary's point. 

The federal government is investing strongly, Congress is investing strongly because they hear the note, they hear the message out there, everybody needs help. 

Mary Scott Nabers (09:31) 

And Marshall, I think it's really important to stress this money will not last this kind of congressional passing of something like it may not happen again in the next generation until then. But also let me tell you, just to help our listeners and I hope you're watching on our site, this podcast, there are many things that help a city or a county or any region get that grant money.  

So let me just throw out a couple of them. Partnerships help. In other words, if it looks like a city is asking for this, but maybe the city has nonprofits or a university or a community college or an economic development group joining them in that, it ups their chances of getting that funding exponentially. And then, 

Marshall Macomber (10:25) 

But tell us why, I agree 100%, but tell us why, Mary, from your experience. 

Mary Scott Nabers (10:31) 

Well, think about it. What they're trying to do is they literally are trying to help cities be more collaborative. And many of these grants also call for a private sector investor to put in some small portion of that money. Maybe it's 10%. And then everything else the federal government funds. Here's what they're trying to do. They're trying to make local and regional banks realize  

you need to invest in the city. This is your city. These are your customers and your clients. And so they are incentivizing those private sector investors with tax credits. And so a city wanting to do something or a county or an economic development group needs to think about, oh my goodness, if we could go ahead and connect the private sector partner who wants to join us in this, it makes it even better. 

So Marshall and I are gonna give a lot of tips. We're gonna do one just on how to win these grants. But for today, maybe that'll help. 

Marshall Macomber (11:34) 

Yeah, and you know, if you think from the perspective of the federal government, they want to benefit the most taxpayers and users in a community as possible. And I think that's why they emphasize that collaborative approach in their grants. 

Mary Scott Nabers (11:50) 

And Marshall, let me come back one more time to this, the deadline we're looking at. Our team at Strategic Partnerships has a really good research division. And so they monitor how these funds are being distributed, what state they're going to, what jurisdiction they're going to, but they also monitor how much are left in those funds. So if you look at ARPA, which was way back during COVID, 

And then you look at everything since then, even down to probably the last biggest one was the Inflation Reduction Act. Most of that money is still there and it's for projects. And there's all kinds of programs, connecting communities, this transit -oriented development that we've been talking about. It's just not something we ought to dismiss. Let me say one more thing. 

I have been urging governors to make resources available in their state for the cities and the counties that want to apply for these grant funds. Some of them are doing that. Shame on the others who are not doing that because there's no reason why not to bring some of that federal funding into your state. It will be available. 

Marshall Macomber (13:15) 

And there's so much assistance available to help a governor or a mayor. Some of these grants go right to mayors these days. But you call the federal agency that oversees that grant. There's just so much help out there. There's these private foundations too that are trying to help as well. 

Mary Scott Nabers (13:36) 

Right, and Marshall, we touched earlier on public private partnerships and we kind of just skimmed past it, but for both of our audiences, we need to say that public private partnerships are happening in every state and investors are looking for ways to get in to be a part of that collaborative initiative. So hopefully if you're a mayor or a county official, 

or a state official, hopefully you'll urge someone there by saying, let's learn more about these public -private partnerships. We could use some of these projects that would help us for the next decades in this room. 

Marshall Macomber (14:12) 

Yeah. That's right. And they could do so much more, but it does take a little bit of change in mindset to go off and try to do something different. But I'm telling you, it's transformative. Three, four, five times greater projects than could otherwise have been done, as infrastructure gets more and more complex all the time. 

Mary Scott Nabers (14:36) 

And then we're going to, within the next two weeks, have a number of articles going up on the site, GovMarketNews, about P3 best practices, how do you hire advisors, what do you need to know about an industry sounding. We're going to have some articles going up about that. And I would just say to our listeners, there's no charge. Go on that site. It's all free. 

Marshall Macomber (15:03) 

So let's summarize some of the themes we talked about today. First of all, housing, downtown redevelopment, huge. All cities are looking at the regional authorities are looking about how to leverage their assets in housing with housing, affordable attainable housing and downtowns too. 

The federal government is in the game and wants to help whether you're converting an office to a project or residential, you're trying to build up housing projects, housing a stock around a transit station, they're in the game. And then three, the private sector, Marion, this public private partnership model of private sector wants to be a part of this, wants to help. There's private sector funds out there that want to help build these projects across the country in every community, big or small. 

Mary Scott Nabers (15:51) 

And Marshall, well, before you get off housing, we need to say one more thing. Almost every state has what's called a public finance corporation program. And a public finance corporation is a nonprofit entity that is heavily involved in helping with the affordable housing.  

So if our listeners don't know what a PFC is, public finance corporation, that would be a really good thing to Google and then Google it and see if your state has those because that's the way a lot of this is getting done. 

Marshall Macomber (16:31) 

And are those loans or grants or tax credits, how do those work? What do they offer? 

Mary Scott Nabers (16:37) 

Well, it's almost too complicated for me to explain in a short period of time, but public finance corporations work with private sector contractors or developers who want to build the public, the affordable housing. They go to a city or a county and they are the brokers who bring the two together. And normally a city who wants that is going to have a piece of property. 

Where they will say, we will lease you this property and if you build affordable housing on it and you keep the rates below market value so we can put our essential workers and our emergency workers in that housing, we will not take property taxes from you. We'll lease it to you for 50 years, 100 years, and you will be free of property taxes.  

So it's just another program that is real interesting for developers to know about and for public officials to know about. 

Marshall Macomber (17:40) 

And from a, I want to add onto this thing. I'm thinking about the state of Florida. They passed the state passed a new law that would enable development of affordable and notable housing more quickly by helping the city. Some of the cities better deal with their zoning challenges and approval challenges at local level. So you're seeing even from a, we would say a statutory perspective, the laws governing the approvals and reviews of these projects. 

Those are trying to get easier to help draw in more folks to any particular location. So I think it's good news all around. So we're seeing at the federal level, we're seeing at the state level and the local level. I think one of the challenges, of course, is trying to coordinate all that because it gets kind of confusing at times, but it can be done and it is being done. 

Mary Scott Nabers (18:30) 

And so Marshall, I'll close by saying this, I called out governors saying you need to be helping with this. I want to also say this, national associations for mayors, national associations for county officials, national association for economic development officials, they need to also be putting out just the same kind of information. Because as I said, this funding won't be available forever. And we have so many critical needs. 

Marshall Macomber (19:00) 

So many, it's an exciting project and so many opportunities. Govmarketnews .com. And this is The Connection podcast at Government Market News. Great conversation as always, Mary. We'll pick this up again probably a week or two. And I hope everybody, thanks for joining us today.