Architects
who read a
pro forma

Riley ABA & Autism Center

18,619 SF — Kansas City, Missouri

A center-based therapy facility for children 18 months to 5 years, serving Brookside, Crossroads, the Plaza, and Westport. The plan had to hold individualized ABA programming, social skills groups, and parent support space in one building — clinical requirements driving the floor plan, not the other way around.

Ageless Adventures

3,901 SF — Prospect Avenue, Kansas City

An adult day program added alongside KD Academy's existing childcare center, so families can hand off both generations in one stop. Funded through the Central City Economic Development sales tax program and projected to create six to eight jobs on the East Side.

Shell Dash Townhomes

St. Petersburg, Florida — with Habitat for Humanity

Ten for-sale homes capped at $210,000 for households at or below 80% AMI, built around a restored historic cottage proposed for the St. Petersburg Register. Nine new townhomes take their bungalow cues from the cottage rather than fighting it. Ownership, not rental — a different and harder outcome.

The Leavenworth Local Hotel

Former Immaculata High School, est. 1890s — Leavenworth, Kansas

A full block of downtown Leavenworth, empty, in a town whose economy runs on the fort. Sixty extended-stay rooms plus bunkrooms for larger groups, and the school theater modernized for conferences and community events — a public room the town lost when the school closed.

Federal Historic Tax Credits

Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3

Application, certification, amendments, and appeal — prepared by the architect of record, with the drawings and the narrative built as one document instead of two.

State Historic Tax Credits

MO · KS · IA · OK · TX · CO

State program applications and certification across six states, sequenced with the federal credit so the two never cannibalize each other.

Designation

National Register + Local Landmark

National Register nominations and local landmark designations — the step that unlocks the entire incentive stack, and the one most owners don't know where to start.

Compliance & Documentation

Section 106 · HABS-level recording

Historic building documentation and Section 106 compliance for projects touching federal funding, licensing, or permits.

Design Review & Representation

SHPO · NPS · Local Commissions

Client representation in local, state, and federal agency negotiation, regulatory coordination, and the public meetings that decide whether a project moves.

Historic Due Diligence

Feasibility before you commit

Credit eligibility screening, condition assessment, and honest feasibility analysis for buyers, lenders, and investors — including when the answer is walk away.

Windows & Envelope

Survey · Advisory · Detailing

Window surveys, replacement advisory, and envelope detailing that satisfies both a preservation reviewer and an energy model.

Agency-Financed Design

HUD 221(d)(4) · Fannie · Freddie · Income-based

Design and preservation services aligned with HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and income-based financing — documentation built to survive federal underwriting, because we've carried a $190MM conversion through it.

Federal Historic Tax Credit

20% of qualified costs

The base layer on most of what we do. We prepare the applications ourselves, alongside the drawings, so the paperwork and the building never tell a reviewer two different stories.

State Historic Tax Credits

20% to 40%, depending where you stand

This is where the arithmetic changes. Kansas pays 40% with no cap. Texas, Missouri, and Iowa 25%. Oklahoma 20%. Same building, different side of a state line, genuinely different answer.

New Markets Tax Credits

Larger mixed-use projects

Strong on bigger commercial and mixed-use work, with rules that rule out straight apartment conversions. If your project has real commercial space in it, this is worth a conversation.

Opportunity Zone Equity

Patient capital, ten-year horizon

Useful when the equity can sit still for a decade, and now noticeably friendlier to smaller towns than it used to be. We will tell you quickly whether your site qualifies.

Housing Credits

Affordable and workforce housing

Federal housing credits, twinned with historic where the building and the rents both allow it. Several states add a match on top that is close to dollar for dollar.

PACE, TIF & Abatement

The local layer

Negotiated at the city and county level. Individually modest. Stacked underneath everything else, often the difference between a deal that closes and a building that sits another decade.

Agency & Conventional Debt

HUD · Fannie · Freddie

Documentation built to survive federal underwriting, because we have carried a $190MM conversion through it. Debt and credit equity have to be sequenced against each other from the first pro forma.

Knowing What To Leave Out

Usually the useful part

Not every program belongs on every project, and two of them can quietly cancel each other out. Deciding what to drop is most of the skill. We would rather tell you that early than at closing.

Kansas

40% · no cap

Forty percent of qualified costs on most commercial rehabilitations, in big cities and small towns alike, with no statewide cap and no waiting list. With the federal credit that is 60%. It is the best state program in the country right now, and it is on our doorstep.

Missouri

25% · home ground

Twenty-five percent, sellable, plus a state housing credit that matches the federal award. Most of our finished portfolio is here — 929 Walnut, The Dairy, Harvey Dutton, the Wonder, ABC & Anderson. We know the reviewers by name and the calendar by heart.

Texas

25% · no cap

No cap, freely sellable, and unusually forgiving on the technical requirements that sink marginal projects elsewhere. Nonprofits and universities can use it too. Long rehabilitations can be phased so the credit pays out sooner.

Oklahoma

20% · no cap

Twenty percent, no cap, sellable. The state application runs alongside the federal one instead of after it, which takes months out of the front end. Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Guthrie, Bartlesville, Enid, Muskogee.

Iowa

25% · refundable

Twenty-five percent and refundable, which is rare and worth real money — it does not need a tax appetite to convert, so it prices closer to par. The Rath Administration Building in Waterloo is ours.

Colorado

25% · 35% in smaller communities

Twenty-five percent, rising to 35% in communities under 50,000. Nonprofits may participate. We carried the Denver VA Medical Center conversion — 493 apartments on a decommissioned federal campus — through agency underwriting here.

We can tell you if it pencils

Before drawings

The first question isn't what it could look like, it's whether it works at your basis. We'll walk it, tell you what it wants to be, what it runs, and what credits it earns — and if the answer is that it doesn't pencil, you'll get that answer too, for free, before you're into it.

We know what the credits are actually worth

$16MM — The Wonder

Not that historic credits exist. What they're worth on your building, in your state, at your timeline, and which two of them quietly cancel each other out. The Wonder carried Missouri HTC, New Markets through AltCap, and PIEA abatement at once. That stack is why it got built.

We write the application and the drawings

Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3

The usual failure is a consultant's Part 2 narrative contradicting the architect's construction documents in front of a reviewer, and nobody notices until it comes back denied. Same firm writes both here, so they say the same thing.

We've carried a project through federal underwriting

$190MM — Denver VA

493 apartments on a decommissioned federal campus, through HUD 221(d)(4). If your capital stack has an agency lender in it, we've already learned where that documentation gets picky.

We know when design is spending your money badly

95% stabilized occupancy

Every move on a historic building either earns rent, satisfies a reviewer, or costs you. Plenty of good-looking decisions do none of the three. Knowing which is which is most of what you're hiring.

We're still there after the ribbon

Five-year compliance

Historic credits recapture if the building leaves service inside five years, and that's a documentation problem, not a design problem. It happens when the architect left at substantial completion. We don't.

Can you combine federal and state historic tax credits?

Yes, and on most of our projects we do. The federal credit is 20% of qualified rehabilitation expenditures. State credits stack on top and vary widely — Kansas pays 40% on qualifying rehabilitations, Texas and Missouri 25%, Oklahoma 20%. The two programs run on separate applications and separate timelines, and sequencing them wrong is the most common way a project loses credit value it had already earned.

How much does the Kansas historic tax credit pay?

Kansas pays 40% of qualified expenditures on rehabilitations of $50,000 or more in cities over 50,000 people, and 40% in cities, townships and unincorporated areas of 50,000 or under. Nonprofits also receive 40%. Smaller work in larger cities receives 25%. There is no statewide annual cap and no per-project cap, the credit is transferable, and it carries forward ten years. With the 20% federal credit, that is 60% of qualified costs.

Can a historic building use New Markets Tax Credits?

Sometimes, and the constraint catches people out. A qualified active low-income community business cannot draw 80% or more of its gross income from residential rental, so a straight apartment conversion usually will not qualify. Mixed-use does. The Wonder Shops and Flats works because 87 lofts sit above 16 commercial bays — the commercial income and the jobs behind it are what make the entity eligible. Below roughly $10MM in total project cost, the allocation competition is rarely worth the structuring cost.

Do historic tax credits and Opportunity Zones work together?

They can, but not by default. The historic credit investor generally needs a pass-through or master lease position, while a Qualified Opportunity Fund needs a qualifying equity interest in the operating business. Forcing one party to do both is where these deals break. The cleaner answer is to keep them in separate positions, which is far easier in states where the state credit is transferable and can simply be sold rather than held inside the ownership structure.

What changed about Opportunity Zones under the new rules?

The program is permanent now, with a rolling five-year deferral and a 10% basis step-up at year five. A new Qualified Rural Opportunity Fund class carries a 30% step-up. For historic work the quieter change matters more: the substantial improvement test for rural property dropped from 100% of basis to 50%. On a rural rehabilitation that hurdle often forced overbuilding. At 50%, a proportionate rehabilitation qualifies.

Is my building eligible for historic tax credits?

It needs to be listed on the National Register, contribute to a listed district, or be eligible for listing — and the rehabilitation has to meet the Secretary of the Interior's Standards. Plenty of buildings that look too far gone qualify, and some that look pristine do not, because of earlier unpermitted work. If designation is missing, that is a step we handle, not a reason to stop. Send an address and we will tell you inside two weeks.

What is historic tax credit recapture, and how risky is it?

If the building leaves service or changes hands inside the five-year compliance period, the IRS can recapture part of the credit, stepping down 20% a year. In practice recapture is a documentation and operations problem rather than a design problem — it happens when nobody owns compliance after the ribbon. We stay on the buildings we finish, so that responsibility does not get handed off at the certificate of occupancy.

What does the Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 process actually involve?

Part 1 establishes that the building is a certified historic structure. Part 2 describes the proposed work, and is where approval is won or lost. Part 3 certifies the completed rehabilitation and releases the credit. The usual failure mode is a Part 2 narrative written by a consultant who never saw the construction documents, contradicting the drawings in front of a reviewer. We write both, so they say the same thing.