Here Comes the Neighborhood

By Carole Buia

Richmond McCoy had come a long way since the days when he marched door to door with his landlord father to collect, or not collect, rent checks in Harlem. His McCoy Realty Group had become the largest real estate management firm controlled by an African American, and his Park Avenue headquarters in Manhattan catered to Wall Street bigs, but that was not enough for McCoy. Spurred by Sterling Green, an apostle of the United House of Prayer in Washington, McCoy, 45, began helping churches develop property in poor neighborhoods. "I felt God was nudging me in a different direction," he recalls.

That direction led to UrbanAmerica, the first real estate investment company to focus on distressed urban areas, a market sinfully ignored by most moneymen. Founded by McCoy in 1998, with backing by New York's Utendahl Capital Partners, the new company persuaded major banks like J.P. Morgan and Citibank to sign on as limited partners. "Demonstrating to them that they could invest institutional money in ethnic markets, receive a nice return and do some good along the way--that was a challenge," says McCoy. It helped that he was offering not only a profitable opportunity but also a way for banks to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law requiring them to provide money for low- and moderate-income communities.

So far, UrbanAmerica has acquired $110 million worth of commercial property, including a shopping mall in Opa Locka, Fla., and medical offices in Las Vegas. The company finds creative ways to bolster communities--and thus protect investments. At Eastover Shopping Center in Oxon Hill, Md., UrbanAmerica is even building a 22,000-sq.-ft. police precinct to make the neighborhood safer and enhance property values.

--By Carole Buia