Amazon will invest $10.6 million to help build and renovate more than 130 affordable homes in Nashville, the company announced Wednesday. Amazon is working in partnership with the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) and supporting the social work of the local nonprofit CrossBridge Inc.

The company’s newest investment is part of the Amazon Housing Equity Fund, a more than $2 billion commitment to create and preserve 20,000 affordable homes for individuals and families earning moderate-to-low incomes in Nashville, Washington state’s Puget Sound region, and the Arlington, Virginia, region.

“We’ve already hired more than 2,500 people at our Nashville office, and we’re continuing to invest and create jobs across the city. We also know that the city’s growth, the impacts of the pandemic, and various other factors affect the availability of affordable housing, and we want to do our part to help,” Michelle Gaskin Brown, Amazon’s Nashville manager of public policy, said in a statement. “We’re proud to be partnering with MDHA and CrossBridge to bring new housing to residents. These new developments will provide affordable housing, social services support, and convenient access to public transportation to hundreds of families and individuals in the city.”

Amazon’s commitment to MDHA consists of a $7.1 million low-rate loan to support the construction of Cherry Oak Apartments, a mixed-income residential development featuring 96 apartments, including 53 affordable homes in the Cayce Place neighborhood in East Nashville, according to a press release by the company.

Cherry Oak Apartments will provide housing in proximity to “high-quality transit, employment centers, and parks.” Families living in the affordable units at Cherry Oak Apartments will have guaranteed affordability at or below 80 percent of area median income (AMI) for 99 years, Amazon notes.

The additional $3.5 million investment from Amazon to CrossBridge is a grant that will support the nonprofit’s housing projects on Lindsley Avenue in the Rolling Hill Mill neighborhood.

CrossBridge owns an entire city block where the organization is completing a new 50-unit building and renovating an existing 24-unit building into a 34-unit building, according to the press release. The grant will allow CrossBridge to complete its projects, operate at affordable rents, and expand services. CrossBridge will also provide tenants with mental health counseling, addiction support, workforce re-entry support, and other services.

Over the past two years, Amazon has committed more than $94 million to affordable housing efforts in Nashville. In 2020, Amazon donated $2.25 million to local affordable housing nonprofit The Housing Fund – and followed up with another $1.5 million in 2021 – to support housing residents in Nashville at risk of losing their homes.

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.