Collaboration and Commitment Drive Newburyport Crossing Forward
October 19, 2026
Construction is underway in Newburyport thanks in large part to a collaborative effort, a can-do mindset and innovative financing.
Newburyport Crossing III will deliver 92 new mixed-income apartments housed in a four-story building, which will add to the 160 units created in phases one and two. The overall project was created by MINCO Development and is adjacent to the Newburyport Commuter Rail station and the Clipper City Rail Trail, about one mile from the city’s downtown.
The project has been years in the making (MINCO has owned the former industrial site since 2006), and its driving force has been the collaboration and commitment of all parties involved.
“We had always thought in the back of our minds that this is a great residential opportunity,” said MINCO CEO Eric Loth. “Newburyport is a great place to live, but it’s an expensive place to live, especially if you want to rent an apartment.”
MINCO twice responded to RFPs from the MBTA and worked with the town to create its Chapter 40R smart growth district.
But Mr. Loth noted “As we got toward the end and we got the building permit, costs kept going up, interest rates were going in the wrong direction. Everything was conspiring against us.”
A solution presented itself when, during a development tour, Mr. Loth ran into MassHousing’s Brian Robinson, Senior Manager – Workforce Housing Strategies and program manager for the Agency’s Bringing Innovation to Lending and Development (BILD) program. BILD creates financing solutions for market-oriented, mixed-income rental housing construction to catalyze private capital investment.
“It was kind of serendipitous,” Mr. Loth said of the meeting. “I didn’t realize there were programs that would work for the project. It fit what MassHousing was looking for but it also fit what we were looking for.”
Through BILD, MassHousing provides a one-stop financial solution by offering a competitive senior debt product coupled with innovative equity financing. Rental developers are eligible to apply if their developments are new production, with at least 50 total units, and at least 20% of the units are affordable to residents earning up to 80% of the area median income.
“The development team at MINCO presented exactly the type of transaction we designed the BILD program for,” said Mark Teden, Vice President of Multifamily Programs at MassHousing. “The development was permitted, and while it yielded a small positive return, it was insufficient for the sponsor to attract all of their required equity. By providing Momentum Equity funding and take-out financing with the FORGE loan, the sponsor was able to attract sufficient private equity as well as a construction lender in order to complete the financing for the project.”
“Getting the commitment from MassHousing made all the difference,” Mr. Loth said. “That last dollar in the project is really the hardest one.”
Mr. Loth cited open lines of communication with MassHousing, as well as the Agency’s responsiveness, as keys to closing the financing.
“It takes a lot of discussions to put these deals together. Everybody kept working collaboratively to find solutions,” Mr. Loth added. “It took that kind of collaboration because every real estate project has its own nuance, its own quirks. To have it be as open and transparent as possible is the only way it can work.”
