NTCIC is happy to announce the successful financing of the historic Shenandoah building in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Once complete, the building will be transformed into a vibrant mixed-use space in the heart of the historic Martinsburg Main Street district. This is the fourth project to utilize NTCIC’s Irvin Henderson Main Street Revitalization Fund.
The Social Hub of Martinsburg
The former Shenandoah Hotel is the only surviving building of its kind in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Built on the site of a civil-war-era plantation, local community investors raised $600,000 to construct the Shenandoah Hotel, a luxurious 104-key boutique hotel that opened to the public on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1926. Located in the heart of Martinsburg, the hotel also included a locally-owned coffee shop and six retail spaces, quickly becoming a cornerstone of the Martinsburg social scenes and a popular destination for tourists and celebrities.
The hotel eventually changed hands and became the Gateway Inn during the 1960s, where it remained for about 20 years. Subsequent transfers in ownership, however, finally led to the permanent closing of the hotel space and the shuttering of the first-floor commercial use. The building has since remained largely vacant.
A Revitalized Main Street Asset
Known as the “Gateway to the Shenandoah Valley,” Martinsburg boasts a historic downtown that covers about 52 blocks and consists of commercial sites, retail, office buildings, warehouses, and storage buildings in which the Shenandoah centrally sits. The historic building will be revitalized into 38 residential units and 16,000 square feet of commercial space: 10,000 square feet will be on the ground floor and will house multiple tenants with a focus on small businesses graduating from a nearby incubator and a restaurant. The basement will include 6,000 square feet, which will likely support a commercial/retail operation and a yoga studio/gym. The project sponsors will work directly with Martinsburg’s local Main Street Association to find commercial tenants for the space.
The space will allow small, local, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses to expand and meet the economic demand for new restaurants, retail shops, and professional offices. The Project will also provide much needed mixed-income housing in the downtown district with 38 residential units, of which 20% will be income-restricted to households earning 80% or less of AMI. The project is anticipated to create up to 40 permanent positions and 57 jobs during construction.
Financing for the revitalization of the Shenandoah building included a variety of grants and incentives including $2 million in New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation and $1.29 million in federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC) equity, both of which were provided by NTCIC. The project also utilized over $1.6 million in state HTCs.
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