Cabretta Capital Marks Five Years, Reflects on Key Community Projects
Monday, June 1st, 2020
Cabretta Capital, a specialty finance firm with expertise in structured tax credit equity funds, is commemorating its fifth year since launching its boutique financial firm in Savannah, Ga., and bringing together the area’s leading group of experts in capital and investment strategies through federal and state tax credit programs.
With a career founded in specialty financial services, Brent Watts founded Cabretta Capital to deliver financial resources to clients, developers, and investors who are bringing forth quality and critically-needed community projects throughout the region.
“Growing our business and reach in the communities that matter so much to our team has been incredibly rewarding,” said Watts. “In five short years, we’ve provided tax credit equity for 49 historic properties in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Louisiana; in addition to 22 affordable housing apartment complexes in Georgia and two solar farms in North Carolina.” Over the next six months, Cabretta Capital will close on nine additional affordable housing apartment complexes in Georgia and Colorado.
With its headquarters located at 2108 Drayton St. in Savannah, Cabretta has become a go-to tax credit resource specifically in the South. “While we serve clients across the U.S., we have enjoyed applying our unique and intimate knowledge of the area and leveraging those resources and information to create innovative partnerships and solutions.”
For Watts, putting together key community-driven projects has been the highlight of the last five years. One of the most significant, high-profile projects the boutique firm helped finance was Atlanta’s Centennial Place, a groundbreaking model for urban community development with more than 700 mixed-income rental units and 40 mixed-income for-sale townhomes. Cabretta provided the capital for phases two, three and four of the multi-phase project which began in 1996 when Atlanta was preparing to host the ‘96 Centennial Olympics.
Centennial Place was a major milestone for the city and more importantly, a beacon of hope for the neighborhood and people it was meant to serve. Centennial Place replaced the infamous Techwood Homes in Atlanta, a low-income development and first federally funded public housing project that was ultimately riddled with crime and despair.
In 2018, Cabretta also partnered with a nonprofit development group in Atlanta and helped provide the capital to create The Legacy at Vine City, an affordable housing development with 105 apartments within a newly-constructed gated community. “The Vine City and Centennial Place projects in Atlanta are at the heart of how tax credit programs incentivize behavior that is ultimately good for taxpayers and the communities in which we live.”
Cabretta works extensively on low-income housing tax credit properties, historic tax credits, renewable energy tax credits, abandoned building tax credits, textile mill tax credits, film tax credits, and several other tax-advantaged programs. In addition to providing capital via tax credits to developers, Cabretta offers institutional and individual investors access to the Opportunity Zone Program.
“While we’re looking forward to the future and have some very exciting projects coming online in Savannah to announce soon (additional housing opportunities and more), we're also committed to providing increased access and educational information to people who may not have thought of using available tax credits as a method to produce tax savings opportunities," said Watts.