The planned senior living tower 15 Craigside in Nuçuanu has weathered the severe global financial market storm, and will begin construction shortly after successfully selling $86 million in tax-exempt bonds to investors.

The 170-unit continuing care retirement community project aimed at moderate-income seniors had been held up for roughly a year by the frozen market for tax-exempt bonds despite having a high level of reservations from people wanting to live in the 13-story building.
Chicago-based investment banking firm Ziegler Capital Markets, which sold the bonds to finance construction of Craigside, said the bond sale was the largest fixed-rate financing deal this year for a senior-living project in the United States and the only one for a new senior-living project in the last 18 months.
“We kept the dream alive,” said Emmet White, CEO of developer Craigside Retirement Residence, a nonprofit corporation affiliated with Arcadia Elder Services and the Arcadia retirement facility on Punahou Street.
Construction of Craigside previously was anticipated to begin last year, but investor demand for tax-exempt bonds financing retirement housing projects froze up amid global financial market turmoil last fall.