2024 Fall Issue of Urban Land - 82

Nitze-Stagen obtained
a $19.1 million lowinterest
loan from
the Amazon Housing
Equity Fund to support
Trace 4001 in Seattle,
Washington.
Sankaran joined Amazon in 2022, after a
long career in the public and private sectors. It
included working at Edens, where he worked
on the redevelopment of the District's historic
Union Market neighborhood. He also served
under two different mayors in the District's
Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and
Economic Development, where he oversaw
the real estate portfolio for the District of
Columbia Housing Authority.
" I've been in this space for a really long
time, doing the public/private work, and then
also the housing and affordable housing space
for quite some time, but [I] never . . . had the
opportunity to have an impact at this level or
scale, " Sankaran says. " It's been the joy of a
lifetime-not just [to] do the work myself but
[to] know that I'm facilitating the work of so
many other great partners. "
Sankaran spoke to Urban Land about the
work of the fund and its future.
UL: Can you talk about the process and how
much capital you've committed to date?
Sankaran: We've committed $2.2 billion to
date. In the recent announcement that we
had in early June . . . our CEO [Andy Jassy]
announced that we had exceeded our goals
of the initial fund, which was $2 billion, or
20,000 units. He announced that we . . . were
at 21,000-plus units and $2.2 billion.
But then, he also made the surprise
announcement that we were going to be
82
URBAN LAND FALL 202 4
adding . . . $1.4 billion to the fund . . . to create
or preserve an additional 14,000 units. [That]
is what we're estimating and focused [upon,]
in the same regions . . . . We've deployed
those dollars primarily through low-rate loans
and some grants-and to some nonprofit partners-but
with the goal of achieving long-term
affordability.
I think one of the things that's been such
a core element for our program has been
pushing the needle on the definition of longterm
affordability. Typically, even whenever
there are other public sources-whether it be
federal or local dollars that come in-a typical
low-income housing tax credit deal will be
between 15 and maybe 30 years, and sometimes,
if there are other public dollars, they
may go up to 40 years. The vast majority-95
percent or so of our loans and grants to
date-come with 99-year restrictive covenants
to ensure affordability for multiple generations.
UL: How are the low-rate loans deployed?
Sankaran: It's predominantly multifamily and .
. . rental product. We are working with public,
private, for-profit, or nonprofit development
owners-we are not building any of [their
properties]. That's an important distinction:
Amazon is not building or owning any of
these properties in the long term. We are providing
low-rate capital . . . to help accelerate
the construction or the preservation of these
projects.
TR A CE 400 1/NIT ZE -S T A GEN
2024 Fall Issue of Urban Land

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