Monday, May 04, 2026
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In Planning
In today’s development environment, successful projects are often shaped as much by financing strategy as by design. Rising construction costs, tighter lending conditions, and increasing project complexity have made one thing clear: assembling the right capital stack is often the difference between a project moving forward or remaining on the drawing board.
Across Ohio, a wide range of public incentives and alternative financing tools are helping bridge funding gaps for transformative projects—from brownfield redevelopment and historic rehabilitation to mixed-use developments and business expansion. For developers, institutions, municipalities, and property owners, understanding how these tools can work together is becoming an essential part of project planning.
At our firm, we increasingly see clients benefit not from a single funding source, but from layering multiple programs to unlock feasibility. Below is an overview of several of the most impactful tools currently shaping development across Ohio.
1. Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program
For projects burdened by environmental contamination or obsolete industrial conditions, Ohio’s Brownfield Remediation Program has become a catalytic tool for redevelopment. Originally launched with over $500 million in funding, the program has continued to evolve, and recent state budget action provides $100 million annually for brownfield remediation and related redevelopment activities.
The program can support environmental remediation, demolition, site preparation, and related costs needed to return underutilized properties to productive use. For urban redevelopment, industrial conversions, and infill housing projects, these funds can remove extraordinary costs that conventional financing often will not cover.
Brownfield funding is particularly powerful because it often serves as the “first dollars in,” reducing risk and making other financing sources more attainable.
2. Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) Tax Credit
Ohio’s Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) Tax Credit was designed specifically for large-scale catalytic projects that generate meaningful economic impact.
Recent updates increased the annual statewide TMUD allocation from $100 million to $125 million per year (or $250 million over the current biennium), making it one of Ohio’s largest redevelopment incentive tools.
TMUD can help fill major financing gaps on mixed-use projects where construction costs outpace conventional returns, with credits generally tied to eligible development expenditures and structured to support transformative, walkable developments.
For developers pursuing catalytic downtown projects or district-scale mixed-use redevelopment, TMUD has quickly become one of Ohio’s most significant economic development tools.
3. Historic Tax Credits: State and Federal
Historic tax credits continue to be among the most effective tools available for adaptive reuse and historic rehabilitation projects.
The Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit currently provides $75 million in annual credits statewide (recently increased from $60 million), with individual projects generally eligible for credits of up to 25% of qualified rehabilitation costs, capped at $5 million per project.
At the federal level, the Federal Historic Tax Credit provides a 20% tax credit on qualified rehabilitation expenditures for certified historic structures.
Used independently, each can be impactful. Layered together, they can be transformative—often generating significant equity that can close otherwise difficult funding gaps.
For projects involving historic schools, mills, factories, downtown commercial buildings, or legacy institutional assets, these credits often make ambitious redevelopment financially viable while preserving historic character.
4. JobsOhio Incentives and State-Level Expansion Tools
For projects tied to job creation, business expansion, or catalytic economic development, JobsOhio incentives can be a significant source of support.
Programs may include grants, low-interest loans, workforce support, and tools such as the Ohio Enterprise Bond Fund, which can provide long-term fixed-rate financing support for qualifying projects.
Additionally, the JobsOhio Revitalization Program can support redevelopment of challenging sites through loans and grants that help close funding gaps tied to remediation or reuse.
These programs are particularly relevant for manufacturing facilities, headquarters projects, innovation districts, mixed-use employment centers, and developments tied to regional economic development strategies.
Too often, these resources are overlooked early in project planning. Engaging them early can materially affect project feasibility.
5. Local and Regional Incentives
While state and federal programs often receive the most attention, local incentives frequently provide some of the most flexible and impactful financing support.
Among the most common are:
Tax Increment Financing (TIF):
TIF can help fund public infrastructure improvements such as roads, utilities, parking, streetscape enhancements, and structured parking—often costs that strain project budgets.
Tax Abatement:
Tax abatements in Ohio commonly provide 50%–100% exemption on the increased property value created by improvements, typically for 10–15 years, with stronger projects often securing 100% abatements for the full 15-year term.
Property tax abatements can improve operating performance, enhance underwriting, and support long-term project returns.
Port Authority Capital Lease Financing:
Often underutilized, port authority structures can provide sales tax savings, bond financing tools, and credit enhancement opportunities that meaningfully improve project economics.
Municipal and Regional Grants:
Many communities offer targeted gap funding, façade grants, infrastructure participation, or economic development support that can be layered into broader incentive packages.
In many projects, these local tools are what make the broader capital stack function.
6. Other Alternative Financing Tools
Some of the most sophisticated projects today are being capitalized through creative use of alternative financing structures beyond traditional debt and equity.
New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC)
NMTC can provide significant subsidy for projects in qualifying census tracts, particularly those involving community facilities, mixed-use development, healthcare, education, and catalytic neighborhood investment.
EB-5 Financing
While highly specialized, EB-5 can provide lower-cost capital for qualifying projects through immigrant investor financing structures and remains a useful tool in select deals.
PACE Financing (Property Assessed Clean Energy)
PACE has become increasingly attractive for funding energy efficiency, resiliency, and sustainability improvements. Because it can finance improvements over extended terms through property assessments, it can often preserve sponsor equity while supporting stronger building performance.
Increasingly, PACE is being integrated not only into sustainability-driven projects, but into mainstream development capital stacks.
The Opportunity Is in the Layering
Perhaps the biggest misconception about incentives is that projects pursue one program at a time.
The reality is the strongest deals often layer multiple tools:
When thoughtfully assembled, these tools can dramatically improve feasibility and expand what is possible.
Consider a hypothetical $10 million adaptive reuse project where strategic layering of incentives dramatically improves feasibility. A project might combine a $750,000 Ohio Brownfield Grant, $2.43 million in monetized state and federal historic tax credit equity, $1.38 million in TMUD proceeds, $750,000 in PACE financing, and $500,000 in TIF-supported infrastructure reimbursements, reducing required developer equity from roughly $3.5 million to $1.5 million. When paired with a 15-year property tax abatement worth an estimated $2.7 million in nominal tax savings, the project economics improve even further. In this example, layered incentives contribute more than $5 million in gap support and structured financing, illustrating how thoughtful capital stack strategy can turn an otherwise difficult project into a viable development opportunity.
That is why funding strategy is increasingly becoming part of early project visioning—not something pursued after design is complete.
Looking Ahead
As construction economics continue to challenge both public and private projects, understanding the full landscape of incentives available in Ohio has never been more important.
For owners and developers, the question is no longer simply What does this project cost? but increasingly How do we capitalize it creatively?
The opportunity lies not just in knowing these programs exist, but in understanding how they can be aligned to advance project goals.
At its best, good development is not simply about assembling buildings. It is about assembling the resources to make transformational projects possible.
And in Ohio, those resources are broader—and more powerful—than many realize.
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