The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program drives critical investment into New Jersey’s diverse urban and suburban communities seeking economic revitalization. From Newark’s urban core to Camden’s waterfront redevelopment zones and Atlantic City’s economic transition areas, NMTC financing unlocks capital for transformative projects in neighborhoods where conventional lending remains insufficient. CBO Financial collaborates with New Jersey developers, life sciences companies, advanced manufacturers, and community organizations to structure comprehensive financing solutions that strengthen the Garden State’s economy while addressing persistent disparities across its densely populated urban centers and post-industrial communities.
New Jersey’s strategic location and diverse economy—spanning pharmaceutical and life sciences, logistics and distribution, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and financial services—creates exceptional opportunities for NMTC deployment. The program provides a 39% federal tax credit to investors who deploy capital in qualified low-income communities, dramatically reducing borrowing costs and enabling projects that serve critical community needs. Whether you’re expanding biopharmaceutical research facilities, developing healthcare infrastructure in underserved neighborhoods, or creating mixed-use developments that revitalize downtown districts in cities like Trenton or Paterson, NMTC financing delivers the capital efficiency necessary for project success.
How the NMTC Program Works in New Jersey
The NMTC Program operates through certified Community Development Entities (CDEs) authorized by the U.S. Treasury’s CDFI Fund to make Qualified Low-Income Community Investments (QLICIs) throughout New Jersey. Projects must be located in census tracts where the poverty rate exceeds 20% or the median family income falls below 80% of the area median. Investors providing equity to CDEs receive tax credits totaling 39% over seven years—5% annually for the first three years and 6% annually for the subsequent four years.
New Jersey contains extensive eligible geography across its urban centers and post-industrial communities. Newark, the state’s largest city, features numerous qualifying census tracts throughout its neighborhoods. Camden, Jersey City, Paterson, Trenton, Elizabeth, and Passaic all contain substantial eligible areas experiencing various stages of economic transition. Atlantic City’s post-casino-boom economy includes multiple qualifying tracts. Former industrial communities, including Perth Amboy, New Brunswick, Union City, and Vineland, also offered NMTC opportunities.
The program supports sectors central to New Jersey’s economic priorities: life sciences and pharmaceutical research facilities; advanced manufacturing operations; healthcare infrastructure; logistics and distribution centers; food processing facilities; technology and innovation spaces; community facilities; and mixed-use urban developments. CBO Financial connects New Jersey projects with both regional CDEs, deeply familiar with the state’s development landscape, and national CDEs with available allocation, navigating complex compliance requirements while ensuring projects advance new market tax credit financing objectives aligned with state economic development goals.
Eligible Projects and Borrowers
New Jersey projects eligible for NMTC financing address urgent infrastructure and economic development needs across multiple high-impact sectors. Life sciences and pharmaceutical projects represent a natural fit given New Jersey’s concentration of global pharmaceutical companies and research institutions. Laboratory expansions, research facilities, biomanufacturing plants, and clinical trial centers qualify when located in eligible census tracts and create accessible employment opportunities for low-income individuals.
Healthcare infrastructure projects remain a critical priority given disparities in healthcare access across New Jersey’s urban communities. Hospital expansions, federally qualified health centers, specialty clinics, mental health facilities, substance abuse treatment centers, and dental clinics all qualify when serving underserved populations. New Jersey’s ongoing challenges with maternal health outcomes and chronic disease management make healthcare facilities particularly compelling NMTC candidates.
Advanced manufacturing facilities producing precision components, medical devices, food products, or other goods qualify if they demonstrate job creation in low-income communities. Logistics and distribution centers that leverage New Jersey’s strategic location between the New York and Philadelphia markets qualify if they serve community needs or create local employment. Food manufacturing and processing facilities that address food security and support local agriculture represent another qualifying category.
Technology and innovation spaces—including incubators, accelerators, coworking facilities, and research parks—qualify when they serve underserved populations or spur economic development in transitioning communities. Educational facilities such as charter schools, early childhood education centers, STEM learning facilities, and workforce training centers address New Jersey’s academic needs and qualify for NMTC support.
Urban revitalization projects represent a substantial NMTC opportunity in New Jersey. Mixed-use developments combining retail, office, residential, and community space help restore economic vitality to struggling downtown districts. Historic building rehabilitation in cities like Newark, Trenton, and Paterson creates modern commercial infrastructure while preserving architectural heritage. Waterfront redevelopment projects in cities like Camden, Perth Amboy, and Hoboken transform underutilized industrial sites into vibrant mixed-use communities.
Eligible borrowers include for-profit businesses, nonprofit organizations, and local government authorities developing qualified projects. The borrower must demonstrate substantial service to low-income communities and demonstrate that NMTC financing is essential to the project’s feasibility. CBO Financial creates comprehensive capital stacks that leverage CDFI requirements, combining NMTC with conventional debt, equity investments, New Jersey Economic Development Authority incentives, opportunity zone benefits (where applicable), historic tax credits, and other complementary funding sources.
Benefits of the NMTC Program for New Jersey
The NMTC Program delivers substantial economic benefits to New Jersey communities while providing borrowers with competitive financing terms. The 39% tax credit significantly reduces effective capital costs, often enabling projects to achieve debt service coverage ratios that satisfy lenders while maintaining operational sustainability. For capital-intensive projects common in New Jersey—biopharmaceutical facilities, healthcare campuses, large-scale urban redevelopment projects—this cost reduction often determines project viability in the state’s high-cost development environment.
Beyond financial mechanics, NMTC investments generate measurable community impact aligned with New Jersey’s development priorities. Job creation remains a central metric, with projects committing to create or retain positions accessible to low-income individuals. In New Jersey’s urban centers, where unemployment rates significantly exceed state averages and economic opportunity remains concentrated in suburban areas, job creation in distressed neighborhoods is particularly important for reducing inequality.
NMTC projects catalyze significant private investment—each additional dollar allocated typically attracts multiple additional capital dollars, multiplying the program’s economic impact. This leverage is essential in New Jersey’s high-cost markets, where project capitalization requirements often exceed the capacity of any single funding source. The program’s ability to make complex, multi-source capital stacks work effectively enables projects that would otherwise remain unrealized.
New Jersey’s urban communities particularly benefit from NMTC’s capacity to finance projects serving essential community needs despite challenging market conditions. Community health centers in Newark, workforce training facilities in Camden, food retailers in Paterson’s food deserts, and mixed-use developments in Trenton’s downtown become feasible through NMTC’s cost reduction and its ability to attract impact-focused investors willing to deploy capital in underserved markets.
The program provides patient capital with flexible repayment structures. Unlike conventional loans requiring immediate full debt service, NMTC transactions often feature interest-only periods during initial years, allowing projects to stabilize operations and build revenue before principal payments commence. This flexibility proves especially valuable for projects with extended lease-up periods or those serving markets with limited immediate revenue potential. To determine how NMTC could benefit your New Jersey project, start your NMTC project with CBO Financial’s expert analysis.
Regulatory & State Development Framework
New Jersey’s robust economic development infrastructure strongly supports NMTC deployment through various state-level programs and agencies. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) administers comprehensive incentive programs that often complement NMTC financing, including the Aspire program (which replaced earlier incentives), tax exemption programs, bond financing, and various grant programs. Understanding how to layer NJEDA incentives with federal NMTC benefits can dramatically enhance project economics in New Jersey’s competitive, high-cost development environment.
The New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (NJHMFA) provides financing tools that may complement NMTC transactions, particularly for projects with affordable housing components or community facility elements. For life sciences projects, the NJEDA’s innovation programs and partnerships with institutions like Rutgers University can provide additional support and validation.
Regional and local economic development organizations—including Newark Community Economic Development Corporation, Cooper’s Ferry Partnership in Camden, Choose New Jersey, and various chambers of commerce—provide project assistance and help navigate local incentive programs. New Jersey’s opportunity zones, which overlap with many NMTC-eligible census tracts, create additional tax incentives that can be layered with NMTC to enhance returns.
For projects involving historic preservation—common in New Jersey’s older urban centers—the state historic tax credit program provides additional financial benefits when combined with federal historic credits and NMTC. The New Jersey Historic Trust administers these programs and can provide technical assistance for rehabilitation projects.
CBO Financial ensures projects meet both federal NMTC compliance requirements and New Jersey’s complex state regulatory framework. We coordinate timing between NMTC closing schedules, NJEDA incentive applications, local approval processes, including municipal consents and Planning Board approvals, and environmental reviews. This integrated approach prevents delays and ensures all financing components align properly. Our deep experience with New Jersey’s regulatory environment—including familiarity with the state’s prevailing wage requirements, local hiring preferences, and community benefits expectations—streamlines project execution.
Get Started with NMTC Financing in New Jersey
Suppose you’re developing a project in a New Jersey low-income community. In that case, whether in Newark’s opportunity zones, Camden’s waterfront redevelopment areas, or any of the state’s numerous urban neighborhoods seeking investment, NMTC financing merits thorough evaluation. The program’s capacity to reduce capital costs while attracting impact-focused investment to underserved areas makes it uniquely powerful for addressing New Jersey’s development challenges, particularly the persistent economic disparities between the state’s prosperous suburban corridors and struggling urban centers.
CBO Financial’s approach begins with a comprehensive project assessment: verifying census tract eligibility, analyzing community impact potential, evaluating NMTC suitability relative to New Jersey’s numerous other incentive programs, and identifying optimal CDE partners. We then develop customized capital stacks that may combine NMTC with conventional debt, equity investments, NJEDA incentives, opportunity zone benefits, historic tax credits, and federal programs.
New Jersey clients benefit from our established relationships with CDEs, tax credit investors, and lenders highly active in the state’s competitive market. We understand New Jersey’s unique development context—the state’s pharmaceutical and life sciences strengths, the complexities of urban redevelopment in densely populated areas, the opportunities along the Northeast Corridor, the challenges of high land and construction costs, and the political considerations inherent in major urban projects. This New Jersey-specific expertise increases NMTC allocation success rates and streamlines transaction execution.
Project size and location shouldn’t discourage NMTC exploration. At the same time, New Jersey hosts some of the nation’s most significant NMTC transactions, with projects ranging from $5 million to $100 million regularly closing across the state through sophisticated structuring. Early engagement with experienced advisors who understand both NMTC mechanics and New Jersey’s specific development environment maximizes success potential. Connect with NMTCA consultants and overview professionals at CBO Financial today to discover how NMTC can transform your New Jersey community development vision into reality.