About once a week, investors call the Argenta Community Development Corp. to ask whether the North Little Rock nonprofit is interested in selling property, Executive Director Hannah Vogler told her board of directors Thursday evening.
"We don't have a lot to tell them," said Vogler, a longtime consultant for area nonprofit organizations who has been on contract since a year ago as interim head of the agency. "We're not anywhere close to knowing what to tell them."
The questions summarize both the interest and concerns over the nonprofit's direction after years of financial struggles as it dealt with federal housing grants and bank partnerships to help rehabilitate distressed areas of North Little Rock's downtown and midtown areas, including creating low-income housing.
Argenta Corp., relegated since May to share space in the North Little Rock Public Works complex to save on rent, is widely credited by the community as the driving factor behind reviving the city's once crime-ridden downtown into a recognized historic district that today has a stable residential area and an active downtown with restaurants and arts-fueled activities.
A month ago, though, the organization's cash-flow troubles -- largely emerging from restrictive grant regulations that limited profits and a revolving door of executive directors -- came to the forefront when Simmons First National Bank filed a foreclosure action on one of the agency's Main Street properties. The agency has put about $827,000 into the blighted property it's been unable to sell at 709-715 Main St., which includes the $565,000 promissory note with the bank from 2008, Vogler said.
The agency's directors approved on Thursday reducing the asking price for that property from $675,000 to $500,000, even though "we would very strongly consider any offer on it," Vogler said in a later interview. Directors also approved contracting with Newland Legal and Accounting Professionals in Little Rock to deal with the lawsuit and attempt to settle out of court, she added.
"We are way underwater on that property," Vogler said in a Friday interview. "It is worth far less than that [$827,000 invested]. I think the bank knows that, and we know that. We all know that. We are actively working to resolve that issue with the bank and are very hopeful they will not force us into bankruptcy.
"The goal is getting somebody in there to develop that property in a way that enhances the neighborhood," Vogler said.
Argenta Corp. is a partner in the ownership of the 56-unit Argenta Square apartments, 617 Maple St., and other single-family houses, duplexes, triplexes and quadruplexes in the Argenta, Holt and Baring Cross areas -- about 90 units in all that are "stable and successful," Vogler said.
The properties are tax-credit projects, meaning that the financing bank receives federal tax credits in exchange for a certain percentage of the properties' residents being qualified as low-income renters or buyers.
But with tax credits expiring on the "scattered properties," Vogler said of those outside Argenta Square, it's possible for Argenta Corp. to acquire 100 percent ownership of those housing units.
"In our case, that is what we are looking at doing," Vogler said. "I can't promise that it's even going to happen. We just don't know for sure."
The goal of Argenta Corp. remains, she emphasized, to do what's best for Argenta. That starts with strengthening Argenta Corp. itself, financially and otherwise.
Board Chairman Don Chambers asked the seven-member board to consider asking two inactive members to return to involvement or to step down, opening up the recruitment of new members who could bring new energy to the organization.
The foreclosure suit should be settled first, added Chambers, who also said members about to rotate off the board might also stay to help acclimate new members.
"I have some names to consider," Chambers said of possible people to join the board. "I'd rather have this whole foreclosure thing in the past. I'll wait."
"We need to decide what direction we're going in first," board member Hallie Calvin said.
Vogler said Friday that what direction the board will take, or what its future holds, is still uncertain.
"There is absolutely no secret plan," Vogler said. "We don't know if we will even have the option to take over those [tax-credit properties]. That doesn't mean to say that we will. Our immediate plans are to keep them operating as they are.
"We're not trying to be all the things that we were in the past," she added. "Our goal is to make sure the neighborhoods are as stable as possible and that the housing units are as stable as possible and to keep Argenta stable."
Metro on 09/28/2014