Rural Healthcare Infrastructure Gets Boost From American Lending Center Participation

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--American Lending Center has announced participation in construction of two rural hospitals as part of its ongoing efforts to improve rural healthcare.

The hospitals are literally on opposite sides of the country – one in Bessemer, Alabama, and the other in Grant County, Washington. Magnolia Bank, headquartered in Kentucky, was the issuing partner in both construction loans.

Making these loans a public/private partnership, the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Rural Development loan guarantee program was used in both cases. To qualify for that program, projects must help rural communities and create jobs.

The Alabama project, the UAB Medical West Hospital, will replace a 1964 hospital with a state-of-the-art 200-bed medical center, a three-story medical office building and an 828-space parking structure. The project is nearing completion, with an August 2024 targeted opening date. The ALC and Magnolia loans will help complete and open the facility.

Once the hospital opens, it will create 497 jobs and serve a large rural area of Alabama with cutting-edge medical services. ALC, through its EB-5 investor program, will finance $8.8 million covered under the USDA loan guarantee while Magnolia Bank is financing $39,915,000. Total estimated cost is more than $425 million.

“This hospital project is a perfect example of ALC’s commitment to healthcare infrastructure,” said Scott Thompson, Vice President and Chief Lending Officer at ALC. “We are supporting several such projects, from hospitals to nursing care facilities, that improve lives in the communities where they are located.”

ALC’s participation in UAB Medical West is through the ALC Southeast LLC, a regional center under the federal EB-5 program approved last year.

The second project, in the town of Moses Lake, Wash., also is a hospital replacement. The current 50-bed acute care Samaritan Hospital in central Washington state serves five towns and the rural population. It was built in 1955, and despite several renovations since, has reached the end of its useful life.

Plans for a replacement began in 2018 but were stalled when the pandemic hit. Since then, residents in the hospital district have passed a bond measure for a large portion of the expected $162 million cost.

The USDA is participating with a direct loan as well as the loan guarantee covering the loans from ALC ($4 million) and Magnolia Bank. Construction is expected to be completed in late 2026.

For more information about ALC programs, email [e-mail].

About American Lending Center: A Financial Times (FT) Americas’ Fastest Growing Company

American Lending Center (ALC) is a private nonbank lending institution and nationally recognized leader in small business lending. By the end of 2022, ALC has fully financed senior loan products to 83 qualified EB-5 projects in 19 states, contributing to a combined construction and business expansion budget of over 1.2 billion dollars. ALC’s lending practice has successfully created more than 13,000 new jobs nationwide since 2009. In 2022, ALC launched its new rural construction and development fund with capital available for construction of fixed assets of all types in rural areas including manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, hospitality, specialty use, multi-use and other project types.

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