Berkadia's $12.4M LIHTC close opens a Wallick pipeline

Berkadia has placed $12.4 million in low-income housing tax credit equity into Lighthouse Ridge Apartments, a 52-unit garden-style development in South Haven, Michigan. The closing is Berkadia's first with Wallick Development, the lead developer on a team that also includes Bogan Developments and Mno-Bmadsen, according to Connect CRE.

James Grande, an associate director in Berkadia's affordable housing group, led the placement and, in comments reported by Connect CRE, said the investment will create new housing options for the broader community. Once complete, the complex will hold 40 two-bedroom and 12 three-bedroom units across three buildings, with a clubhouse housing the community space, management office, laundry room, fitness center, and business center.

The dollar figure is easier to size against PWD's broader multifamily records, which count 2025 originations of $381.8 billion across 2,530 lenders, a 32% rebound. That is debt volume, though, and this is equity of a different kind; a $12.4 million placement passed project by project through the tax-credit channel is large enough to unlock a specific 52-unit property and small enough to vanish inside a single year of national totals.

The first-time pairing is the point. Berkadia took a 52-unit deal to build something it had not had before: a working relationship with Wallick Development, the asset that compounds in this corner of the market, and a single small close is the way to earn it. A larger syndicator might treat a one-off Michigan allocation as noise; a firm serious about affordable housing treats it as an introduction.

That makes the introduction the real trade. The placement gets South Haven its housing; Berkadia gets a place in Wallick's pipeline it did not occupy before, and when a later Wallick project needs tax-credit equity, the provider with a closed file starts with an edge. This deal is how that file gets opened.