The mission of the New York City Educational Construction Fund (ECF) is to build safe, secure learning environments. ECF encourages comprehensive neighborhood development by constructing mixed-use real estate projects which feature new school facilities. ECF increases the capacity of the New York City Department of Education to construct new school facilities, thereby increasing the number of seats for the entire school system. ECF is a public benefit corporation that was created by the New York State Legislature in 1967 and since that time has constructed projects that added over 18,000 school seats, 4,500 units of housing and 1.2 million square feet of office space in New York City.
ECF, as a financing and development vehicle of the New York City Department of Education, provides funds for combined occupancy structures including school facilities in New York City. ECF builds combined-occupancy structures on City-owned land conveyed to ECF by the City of New York. The school facility portion of the mixed-use project is financed via the issue of tax exempt bonds with a term of up to forty years. ECF uses ground rents, lease payments and/or tax equivalency payments from the non-school portion of projects to finance construction of its school facilities. Future revenues from the non-school portion(s) of the development are used to pay the debt service of the school facility
ECF-issued tax exempt bonds are backed by the credit of the City of New York.
The NYC Educational Construction Fund (“ECF”) has retained a registered municipal advisor. ECF is represented by, and will rely on, its municipal advisor PFM Financial Advisors LLC (“PFM”) to provide advice on proposals from underwriters concerning the issuance of municipal securities and municipal financial products generally (including the investment of bond proceeds and escrow investments). The contact person at PFM is Charles Matthews. ECF’s contract with PFM extends through December 15, 2022; accordingly, this certificate may be relied upon until such date or until its earlier withdrawal (notice of which will be posted on this website). If a proposal received from an underwriter will be seriously considered by ECF, ECF will share the proposal with its municipal advisor. ECF makes no representation as to the independence of its municipal advisor with respect to any individual municipal market participant.