01-05-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
More than hardware: A historic Walter Reed building will be 'a better place'
When attorneys and real estate developers Eric Jenkins and Earle 'Chico' Horton envisioned turning a historic building on Washington, D.C.'s former Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus into a neighborhood hardware store, café and offices, they aimed to make it one of their 'better places.'
Together, the business partners have decades of commercial and residential real estate experience and dozens of successful projects in their respective portfolios. 'While improving the buildings we acquire is an important part of our work, our overarching aim is to build better places for the people who reside or work in them,' said Jenkins. 'Ultimately, our business is about people and cultivating community.'
Preserving history
Their project — a joint venture of Horton's Blue Sky Housing LLC and Jenkin's Evergreen Urban LLC — is part of the 66-acre, $700 million master planned development called The Parks at Walter Reed.
The 18,000-square-foot, three-story building — built in 1915 as the quarters for the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (ANC) — will be renamed 'The Hazel' to honor Brigadier General Hazel Johnson-Brown. In 1979, she became the first Black woman to achieve such a high military rank and to head the ANC. It is expected to open in late 2025.
'In her honor, we'll also be naming our store Hazel's Hardware,' said Horton. 'In fact, she served in the building where it will be. So, in the spirit of her public service, we want Hazel's Hardware to be the place that's here for the neighborhood — to serve the locals and help them accomplish their projects.'
Finding banking support that shares the vision
To acquire the building, they faced a unique financing challenge. The project required an innovative blend of New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) with a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) construction-to-permanent loan — a combination most banks couldn't structure.
The transaction qualified under the NMTC Program because Hazel's Hardware, a 100% minority-owned and Certified Business Enterprise (CBE), is located on a Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) site, and the military hospital jobs were leaving the area.
'We talked to other lenders about our financing requirement, and they just couldn't figure it out,' Horton said. 'But thanks to the great work of the folks at TD, they were able to dig in and use their resources to figure it out. They really stepped up and helped us take this deal to the finish line.'
That determination came from John Tucker, TD Bank relationship manager; Jimmy Jarrell, SBA business development officer; and Michael Cooper, president of the TD Community Development Corporation (TDCDC), who collectively recognized the project's complexity and its potential impact.
Together, TD Bank and the TDCDC, a wholly owned subsidiary, provided nearly $6.6 million in funding and equity to complete the transaction. TD Bank, an SBA Preferred Lender, funded a $5 million SBA 7(a) loan. TDCDC, through its NMTC Thriving Communities Fund, supported the project with an approximately $1.6 million NMTC equity investment.
According to Jenkins, the bank's ability to coordinate multiple funding sources made the complex project feasible. 'There were half a dozen times when TD could have walked away from this deal, but they didn't,' he said. 'Unlike other banks, TD stood out as having the resources to provide the solutions we needed. They had a super-strong SBA team plus a super-strong New Markets Tax Credit team, which was exactly what we needed.'
Spurring economic opportunity — and cultivating community
When open and operating in late fall 2025, the building will feature a True Value-branded hardware store alongside a locally owned coffee shop, Blue's Coffee & Tea Co. In addition, professional offices will occupy 7,000 square feet of space on the upper floors.
But the project's impact will extend beyond the building's walls and retail services.
'It's also part of our mission to employ community members who live within the area, including residents who live in affordable housing on the Walter Reed campus and in the adjacent neighborhood,' Horton said.
This commitment to local hiring aligns with the project's broader community development goals, which TD Bank fully supports.
'Hazel's Hardware and the café are going to be a meaningful gathering place for the neighborhood,' Tucker said. 'The way Eric and Chico have so thoughtfully built a sense of community into the store positions it to be a cornerstone in the area for generations.'
TD Bank is one of the 10 largest banks in the U.S. by assets, providing over 10 million customers with a full range of retail, small business and commercial banking products and services at more than 1,100 convenient locations throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Metro D.C., the Carolinas and Florida. Find out more at
