the-nash-group

From Section 8 to CEO

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 02:54:19 GMT

I grew up in public housing. Section 8. Kansas City, Missouri. That is not a metaphor or a brand story. That is where I slept at night.

My mother raised us without much, but she raised us with an understanding that where you start does not determine where you finish. I took that seriously. Maybe more seriously than she intended, because by the time I was done, I had collected nine academic degrees, traveled to more than 50 countries, served on the Kansas City Council, been appointed to the Missouri Housing Development Commission by the governor, joined the boards of a bank, a university, and a national development company, and built a real estate advisory firm that operates across multiple states.

Savoy Magazine named me among the Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America in 2020 and again in 2022. Ingram's Magazine put me on their list of 50 Missourians You Should Know in 2015. I am telling you this not to impress you but to establish a fact: the trajectory from public housing to national recognition is documented. It is not a claim. It is a record.

The Arc

Nine degrees sounds excessive until you understand the logic. Each degree opened a door that the previous one could not. A bachelor's degree got me into law school. Law school gave me the tools to understand policy. A master's in public administration taught me how government actually works from the inside. An MBA taught me how capital flows. A doctorate gave me the credibility to teach at a university. Every credential was a strategic investment in the next phase of the work.

People ask me why I kept going back to school. The answer is simple: every time I reached the next level of my career, I discovered that I needed knowledge I did not yet have. When I entered government, I needed to understand public administration. When I started doing development deals, I needed to understand finance. When I wanted to teach at a university, I needed the terminal degree. Education was never the goal. It was always the tool.

The Kansas City Council taught me how cities make decisions. Chairing the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee showed me the full machinery of urban development: the politics, the financing, the community dynamics, and the trade-offs that nobody talks about publicly. Every major development project in Kansas City crossed my desk. Every zoning change. Every tax abatement. Every TIF district. I saw how the system worked from the inside, and that education was more valuable than any degree.

The Missouri Housing Commission taught me how states allocate Low Income Housing Tax Credits. As a commissioner appointed by Governor Jay Nixon, I sat on the other side of the table from the developers who submitted applications. I evaluated their proposals. I participated in discussions about which projects deserved limited state resources. That experience is available from almost nobody in the private sector, because almost nobody in the private sector has served as a housing commissioner.

Traveling to 50 countries was not tourism. It was education. I studied housing systems in Europe, urban planning models in Asia, community development approaches in Africa and Latin America. In Cuba, I studied a healthcare delivery model that puts a doctor in every neighborhood, and I brought that concept back to Kansas City, where it eventually influenced our approach to co-locating healthcare with affordable housing. Every country taught me something. Every lesson informed the work.

Why I Built The Nash Group

After years in government and education, I understood something that most people in this field do not: the gap between policy and execution is where communities get hurt. Policies exist. Funding exists. Tax credits exist. But the people who can actually structure a deal, navigate the politics, manage the construction, and deliver housing that serves the community are rare.

There are plenty of policy experts who cannot execute. There are plenty of builders who do not understand policy. There are plenty of consultants who have never served in government. The Nash Group exists because I have done all three, and I built a firm that brings all three capabilities to every project.

We do not just advise. We develop. We do not just develop. We teach. The Lewis White Real Estate Center at UMKC, where I serve as director, trains the next generation of real estate professionals using the same principles that built the firm. That is not a side project. It is core to the mission, because the problems we work on will outlast any individual career.

What This Story Means For You

If you are a prospective client evaluating whether to work with us, here is what my story tells you: I have been on every side of this table. I have been the resident who needed housing. I have been the elected official who voted on housing policy. I have been the commissioner who allocated tax credits. I have been the developer who built the housing. And I have been the professor who teaches others how to do it.

That is not a typical resume in this industry. Most people know one side. I know all of them. And that knowledge shows up in every project we touch, because we understand not just what needs to be built but why it matters and who it serves.

When we sit across the table from a housing finance agency, we understand their perspective because I have been a commissioner. When we engage with a city council on an entitlement approval, we understand the political dynamics because I chaired the committee that made those decisions. When we structure a capital stack, we understand the investor's requirements because I have an MBA and have closed these deals myself. When we engage with community residents, we understand their concerns because I grew up in public housing and I have lived in the conditions that bad housing creates.

The kid from Section 8 did not forget where he came from. He turned it into a career that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in community investment across multiple cities. That is the power of refusing to accept your starting point as your endpoint.

Thirty years. Nine degrees. Fifty countries. And it all started in public housing in Kansas City.

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THEME 2: AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

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Brothers Turn Dream Into Determination

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 02:25:12 GMT

People always want to know how I got here. They see the degrees, the developments, the board seats, and they assume there was some master plan. There was not. What there was, at the very beginning, was a kitchen table and a set of circumstances that demanded I do something about them.

In 1995, I was 25 years old, a law student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, living with my wife Sherrie in a house on Charlotte Street near Brookside. My three older brothers — Harvey, Daryl, and Todd — were smart men with no credentials and no clear path forward. They had the ability but not the access. Nobody had shown them how to navigate the system that separates people who can from people who do. I decided that if nobody else was going to do it, I would.

Every Saturday at 10 a.m., we held a formal meeting at my house. I sat at that kitchen table and worked with all three of my brothers. We went through the material together. We talked about what college actually was, what it required, and what it could open up. The brothers all wore ties. They rose when they spoke, observed parliamentary procedure, and referred to one another by formal titles. It was not some grand philanthropic project. This was family. These were my brothers, and they were too talented to stay where they were.

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes from watching people you love operate below their potential. Not because they are lazy or incapable, but because nobody ever sat them down and said: here is how this works. Here is what you need to do. Here is the path. My brothers had spent their entire lives in a system that was not designed to show them that path. The schools they attended were underfunded. The neighborhoods they grew up in were disinvested. The message they received from every institutional interaction was that people like them did not go to college.

I rejected that message. And then I spent months proving it wrong, one brother at a time.

One by one, each of them enrolled in college. The conversations were not always easy. When you are an adult who has been out of school for years, the idea of going back feels impossible. You feel too old. You feel too far behind. You feel like the opportunity has passed. My job was to break through that feeling and replace it with evidence: here is the application. Here is the financial aid form. Here is the course catalog. You can do this. I will help you.

My mother watched her sons transform their lives, and then she did the same thing. At 55 years old, my mother earned her GED. She looked at what her boys were doing and decided she was not going to be left behind. That is the most powerful thing I have ever witnessed in my life. A woman who had spent decades raising children in public housing, who had every reason to believe that her own educational moment had passed, looked at her sons and said: if they can do it, so can I.

She was right.

Why This Matters

I tell this story not because it makes for a good profile piece, although it does. I tell it because it explains everything that came after. Every development I have built, every policy I have fought for, every classroom I have taught in comes from the same impulse that put me at that kitchen table: if the people around you have the ability but not the access, you create the access.

This was not about charity. It was about refusing to accept that my family's circumstances were permanent. The housing projects where I grew up taught me that systems create conditions, and conditions shape lives. But they also taught me that individuals can break those conditions if somebody shows up with a plan and the willingness to execute it.

My brothers did not need saving. They needed a bridge. That is the same thing I have spent the last 30 years building for communities across this country. Different scale, same principle.

The parallel to affordable housing development is direct. When we build housing in an underserved neighborhood, we are not rescuing the community. We are providing infrastructure that allows the talent and determination that already exists in that community to flourish. The families who move into our developments are not charity cases. They are people who need a bridge between where they are and where they want to be. Quality, affordable housing is that bridge.

The same is true of the policy work. When I sat on the Kansas City Council and fought for investment in East Side neighborhoods, I was not arguing that those neighborhoods were helpless. I was arguing that they deserved the same public infrastructure that the rest of the city took for granted. The people were capable. The systems had failed them.

The Lesson

When people evaluate The Nash Group, they are evaluating whether we actually care about the communities we serve. I understand that skepticism because I have seen plenty of developers who treat affordable housing as a transaction. Build the units, collect the credits, move on.

That is not us. Our commitment to community transformation predates the company. It predates my career. It started at a kitchen table in Kansas City with a 25 year old kid who refused to watch his brothers get left behind.

My mother earning her GED at 55 proved something I have believed ever since: it is never too late, and nobody is beyond reach. That conviction shows up in every project we take on. When we build housing in a neighborhood that has been disinvested for decades, we do not just build units. We build the infrastructure that lets people reach for something better.

The Kansas City Star covered this story in 1995, back when I was just getting started. They saw a young man helping his family. What I see, looking back, is the foundational act that defined everything. If you can change your family, you can change a block. If you can change a block, you can change a neighborhood. If you can change a neighborhood, you can change a city.

That is not a slogan. That is a 30 year track record. And it started with three brothers, a kitchen table, and a refusal to accept that where you start is where you finish.

New Paragraph

Bridging the Racial Divide

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; City Councilmen Sponsor Forum to Bridge the Racial Divide; KC Councilmen Share Lessons of Diversity; Students Say Racism Exists in KC

Kansas City has a race problem. Every American city does, but Kansas City's is written into its geography. Troost Avenue divides the city by race and income. The east side is predominantly Black and underinvested. The west side is predominantly white and prosperous. The city lives with this divide every day, and most politicians treat it like weather: something to acknowledge and move on from.

I did not move on from it. I hosted public forums specifically designed to confront the racial divide and create space for honest conversation about what it means, how it happened, and what we can do about it.

The Forums

Working with my council colleagues, I sponsored forums that brought residents from across the city together to discuss race, diversity, and the structural inequalities that shaped Kansas City. These were not academic panels or political theater. They were community conversations where people said what they actually thought.

The Kansas City Star covered these events because they were unusual. Elected officials do not typically create spaces for uncomfortable conversations about race. It is easier to give a speech about unity and move on to the next agenda item. What we did was harder: we sat in rooms with people who had fundamentally different experiences of the same city and facilitated conversations that were honest, sometimes painful, and always necessary.

Students spoke about their experiences with racism in Kansas City schools. Residents described the daily reality of living in a segregated city. Business leaders acknowledged the economic consequences of the racial divide. And council members listened.

Why This Matters

Racial equity is not separate from community development. It is the foundation of it. You cannot build affordable housing, invest in transit, revitalize commercial corridors, or transform neighborhoods without confronting the racial dynamics that created the conditions you are trying to change.

Every underinvested neighborhood in Kansas City became underinvested because of racial discrimination. Redlining determined where Black families could buy homes. Restrictive covenants determined where they could not. Highway construction destroyed Black neighborhoods. Urban renewal displaced Black communities. Zoning laws concentrated poverty in Black areas.

If you do not understand that history, you cannot do effective development in these neighborhoods.

Talking about race in public is politically risky. I talked about it anyway because the alternative — pretending that race did not shape every aspect of Kansas City's development landscape — was dishonest. And dishonesty is a poor foundation for community transformation.

Securing Police Equipment and Safety Resources for the Third District

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Nash, Weaver Secure Funding for Police Trailer and ATVs to Help Fight Crime; City Councilman Unveils Plan to Combat Crime in the Third District

Crime in the Third District was not an abstract policy issue. It was personal. Residents I knew, people whose homes I visited, families whose children attended the same schools — they were the victims. And the police resources available to protect them were inadequate.

Working with Councilwoman Weaver, I secured funding for police trailers and ATVs for the Third District. These were not luxury purchases. They were essential tools that allowed police officers to establish visible presence in areas that patrol cars could not effectively reach.

The police trailer served as a mobile command center that could be positioned in high-crime areas, giving officers a visible base of operations and giving residents a physical location where they could interact with police without going to a station. The ATVs allowed officers to patrol alleys, vacant lots, and other areas that squad cars could not access.

The equipment funding was part of a comprehensive approach to public safety that I unveiled publicly and pursued through legislation and budget advocacy. The plan combined enforcement tools, community engagement, and environmental improvements.

Enforcement meant getting officers the equipment they needed and establishing visible police presence in areas where residents felt unsafe. Community engagement meant holding forums where residents could tell police what was happening in their neighborhoods. Environmental improvements meant tearing down abandoned buildings, clearing vacant lots, improving street lighting, and eliminating the physical conditions that harbor criminal activity.

Public safety and affordable housing are inseparable. You can build the most beautiful affordable housing development in the city, but if residents do not feel safe walking from their car to their front door, the project has failed.

Every Nash Group development includes a safety analysis. We evaluate crime data, lighting conditions, sight lines, and access patterns. We design our projects to maximize natural surveillance. This approach comes directly from my council experience fighting to make Third District neighborhoods safer.

Labor Unions Partner with City to Renovate Community Centers

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Labor Unions Partner with City to Renovate Community Centers; Councilman Nash Continues Partnership with Labor Unions; Labor Groups Endorse Troy Nash

Most politicians talk about partnerships between government, labor, and community organizations. I built them.

During my time on the Kansas City Council, I forged a working relationship with local labor unions that went beyond endorsements and campaign contributions. We partnered on projects that delivered tangible results for neighborhoods that needed them most. The centerpiece of that partnership was a community center renovation initiative that brought union labor and city resources together to rebuild the physical infrastructure of the Third District.

How The Partnership Worked

Labor unions have members who are skilled tradespeople: carpenters, electricians, plumbers, painters. They also have a mission that extends beyond wages and benefits. The best unions understand that they are community institutions, and that their relevance depends on their contribution to the communities where their members live and work.

I approached the local unions with a proposition: the community centers in my district were deteriorating. The city's maintenance budget was insufficient to bring them up to standard. What if the unions contributed skilled labor, the city provided materials and coordination, and together we renovated the centers that served as the social anchors of the neighborhood?

The unions agreed. They saw the project as an opportunity to demonstrate their value to the community, to give their members meaningful work, and to strengthen the relationship between organized labor and the neighborhoods they served.

The renovations were not cosmetic. These were substantive rebuilds: structural repairs, electrical upgrades, plumbing work, and interior finishes that transformed aging facilities into community assets that residents could be proud of.

Why This Mattered

Community centers are more than buildings. They are the places where after school programs happen, where seniors gather, where neighborhood meetings take place, where the social fabric of a community is woven. When those buildings deteriorate, the social programs that depend on them deteriorate as well.

My relationship with organized labor was not transactional. It was built on shared values. When the Missouri Municipal League took positions on collective bargaining that I believed were harmful to workers, I publicly resigned from the league in protest. The Kansas City Star covered that resignation because it was unusual: an elected official walking away from a powerful statewide organization over a matter of principle.

That act established my credibility with labor in a way that no amount of rhetoric could match. They knew I was willing to sacrifice politically to stand with them. And when I asked them to stand with the community on projects like the center renovations, they did.

International Trade: Mexico, Costa Rica, and Global Economic Development

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; KC Seeks New Jobs, Business with Mexico; KC Group Will Prospect in Costa Rica; New Council Panel Aims to Steer KC's Role in Global Trade; Council Nash Discusses Business Linkages with Mayors

Kansas City is a landlocked midwestern city that most people associate with barbecue and the Chiefs. It is also a city that sits at the center of the North American trade corridor, with rail connections, highway systems, and logistics infrastructure that make it a natural hub for international commerce.

I recognized that potential early, and I worked to connect Kansas City's economy to international markets in ways that created jobs and opportunity for the communities I served.

The Trade Missions

During my council tenure, I participated in and helped organize trade missions to Mexico and Costa Rica. These were not ceremonial visits. They were business development trips designed to identify specific economic opportunities for Kansas City companies and workers.

The Kansas City Star covered the Mexico mission: "KC seeks new jobs, business with Mexico." That headline captures the purpose precisely. We were not going to Mexico for diplomatic experience. We were going to find deals, partnerships, and market opportunities that would translate into jobs back home.

The Costa Rica trip had a similar focus. The press documented our prospecting efforts in Costa Rica's growing economy, looking for linkages between Kansas City businesses and Central American markets that could generate mutual benefit.

The Council Panel

I helped create a new council panel specifically designed to steer Kansas City's role in global trade. This was institutional innovation: recognizing that international economic development was too important to be handled as an afterthought and deserved its own dedicated committee structure.

The panel brought together council members, business leaders, and trade professionals to develop a coordinated strategy for Kansas City's international engagement. The Kansas City Star covered the panel's creation, recognizing it as an unusual step for a city council that typically focused on domestic issues.

My approach to international engagement was rooted in a simple observation: economic isolation is a choice, and it is a bad one. The communities I represented on the council were economically isolated not just within the city but within the global economy. Connecting those neighborhoods to international economic activity was part of my broader strategy for neighborhood transformation. Trade creates jobs. Jobs create income. Income creates stability. Stability creates the foundation for community development.

When the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Visited Kansas City

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Visits Kansas City

When the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development comes to your city, it matters who is in the room. It matters because the Secretary controls billions of dollars in federal housing resources, and the people who get access to that meeting shape where those resources flow.

I was in that room. As a Kansas City council member representing the Third District, I engaged directly with the HUD Secretary during an official visit to Kansas City. The meeting was an opportunity to put the needs of the neighborhoods I represented in front of the person who controlled the federal government's housing investment portfolio.

Why Federal Engagement Matters

Affordable housing in America is funded through a complex web of federal, state, and local programs. Section 8 vouchers, CDBG funding, HOME Investment Partnerships, LIHTC, HOPE VI, and dozens of other programs flow from federal agencies to states and localities. The rules governing those programs are set in Washington. The priorities are shaped by the administration. And the allocation decisions are influenced by relationships between local leaders and federal officials.

A council member who never engages with federal housing leadership is leaving money on the table. A council member who meets directly with the HUD Secretary is positioning his city and his district to compete for federal resources.

That is what I did. I used the Secretary's visit to articulate the specific housing challenges facing Kansas City's inner city neighborhoods: inadequate supply of affordable units, deteriorating public housing stock, limited access to homeownership for low income families, and the persistent gap between housing need and housing investment.

The Substance of the Conversation

I did not use the Secretary's visit for a photo opportunity. I used it to advocate for policy changes and resource allocation that would benefit the communities I served. The conversation covered federal funding priorities, the effectiveness of existing HUD programs in Kansas City, and the specific barriers that prevented federal housing resources from reaching the neighborhoods that needed them most.

Federal housing programs are powerful tools, but they do not distribute themselves equitably. Communities that advocate effectively receive more resources than communities that do not. The Third District needed someone who could articulate its needs at the federal level and make the case for increased investment.

The Pattern of Federal Engagement

The HUD Secretary visit was part of a broader pattern of federal engagement that characterized my council tenure. I was appointed to national committees. I engaged with presidential campaigns on housing policy. I participated in federal advisory processes. And I used every one of those platforms to advocate for the communities I represented.

This federal engagement is not typical for a local council member. Most city council members focus entirely on local issues and leave federal advocacy to the mayor's office or the congressional delegation. I took a different approach because I understood that the federal government is the largest single investor in affordable housing, and ignoring that investment source was not an option for neighborhoods that needed every available resource.

How This Informs Our Practice

The Nash Group operates in a federal housing landscape that I have navigated from multiple positions: as a local elected official, as a state housing commissioner, and as a private developer. Each position gave me a different angle on how federal resources flow, how federal priorities are set, and how to position projects to capture federal investment.

When we structure deals that include federal funding sources, we understand the regulatory requirements because I have engaged with the agencies that enforce them. When we advocate for policy changes that would benefit affordable housing, we understand the political dynamics because I have participated in those dynamics at every level of government.

The Secretary's visit to Kansas City was a moment in time. But the federal engagement it represented — sustained, substantive, strategic — is a permanent feature of how The Nash Group operates. We do not wait for federal resources to find us. We go to Washington, or we bring Washington to us, and we make the case for investment in the communities we serve.

That is not theory. It is a documented practice that spans three decades.

Named to White House Board

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Troy Nash Named to White House Board; PTPI Board of Trustees Meeting

When the White House names you to a board, it changes the conversation about who you are and what you represent. It means that the executive branch of the United States government has identified you as someone whose perspective, experience, and judgment are needed at the national level.

I received that recognition through my involvement with People to People International, the citizen diplomacy organization founded by President Eisenhower in 1956. My appointment to the PTPI Board of Trustees placed me in a network of national and international leaders committed to promoting understanding between people of different nations and cultures.

What PTPI Does

People to People International is built on Eisenhower's belief that ordinary citizens can accomplish what diplomats sometimes cannot: genuine understanding between people. The organization facilitates citizen exchanges, professional delegations, and community partnerships across national borders.

Eisenhower created PTPI because he understood that peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of relationships between people who understand each other. The organization has facilitated millions of citizen-to-citizen exchanges since its founding, creating personal connections that transcend national boundaries, political differences, and cultural barriers.

My role on the board involved strategic governance of the organization's programs, international partnerships, and operational direction. Board members were drawn from business, government, academia, and civic leadership across the United States. The appointment carried both the prestige of White House association and the practical responsibility of guiding an organization with global reach.

Why This Appointment Happened

The White House does not appoint people to boards randomly. Every appointment reflects a judgment about the individual's capacity to contribute at a specific level. In my case, the appointment recognized a combination of local leadership, international engagement, and demonstrated commitment to the kind of cross-cultural understanding that PTPI promotes.

By the time of the appointment, I had already traveled extensively, served on the Kansas City Council, chaired the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee, and built a track record of community engagement that extended across cultural and geographic boundaries. The appointment was recognition that this local track record had national relevance.

The Connection to Our Work

International engagement is not separate from community development. It informs it. Every country I have visited, every delegation I have led, every international partnership I have built has expanded my understanding of how communities work, how development succeeds, and how different societies balance growth with equity.

When The Nash Group evaluates a transit oriented development project, our analysis is informed by models we have studied internationally. When we design community engagement strategies, we draw on approaches we have seen work in different cultural contexts. When we advise clients on complex development challenges, we bring a breadth of perspective that comes from decades of international engagement.

The PTPI board appointment was official recognition that this global perspective has national value. For clients and partners who work with The Nash Group, it provides assurance that our leadership operates at a level that has been validated by the highest office in the country.

Board service at the national level established relationships and perspectives that continue to inform our work. The network of leaders I engaged with through PTPI spans multiple sectors and multiple countries. Those relationships create opportunities for knowledge exchange, partnership, and collaboration that a purely local firm could never access.

The Nash Group is a Kansas City firm with a national practice and an international perspective. The White House board appointment is one of the foundation stones of that positioning.

Presenting an Award to Bishop Desmond Tutu in Hong Kong

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, 2003; Councilman Nash to Present Award to Desmond Tutu in Hong Kong; Councilman Presents Award to Bishop Tutu; Nash Honors Tutu

In 2003, I traveled to Hong Kong to present an award to Bishop Desmond Tutu on behalf of People to People International. If you do not know who Desmond Tutu was, here is the short version: he was the Archbishop of Cape Town who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work dismantling apartheid in South Africa. He is one of the most consequential moral leaders of the twentieth century.

I stood on a stage in Hong Kong and presented an award to that man.

How A Kansas City Councilman Got To Hong Kong

People to People International was founded by President Eisenhower in 1956 to promote international understanding through direct citizen-to-citizen contact. I served on the PTPI Board of Trustees, which gave me a platform for international engagement that most city council members never access.

The invitation to present an award to Bishop Tutu came through my PTPI involvement. The organization selected me to represent them at the event because of my commitment to the same principles that Tutu embodied: justice, equity, and the belief that communities can be transformed through courage and persistence.

Standing on that stage, presenting that award, was one of the most profound experiences of my life. Not because of the ceremony itself, but because of what it represented. A kid from Section 8 housing in Kansas City was honoring a Nobel laureate in Hong Kong. That trajectory was not accidental. It was the result of decades of work, education, and a refusal to accept limits that others imposed.

The International Dimension

I have traveled to more than 50 countries. That is not a vacation log. It is an education. In every country I visited, I studied housing systems, urban planning approaches, community development models, and governance structures. I brought those lessons back to Kansas City and applied them to real projects.

The Hong Kong trip and the Tutu presentation were part of a broader pattern of international engagement that included leading a delegation to Cuba, participating in trade missions to Mexico and Costa Rica, and engaging with municipal leaders across multiple continents.

This international experience gives The Nash Group a perspective that most domestic development firms do not have. We understand that the affordable housing crisis is not uniquely American. Other countries have developed innovative approaches to housing finance, community development, and transit oriented planning that are directly applicable to the challenges we face here.

What Bishop Tutu Represented

Tutu's life was proof that moral clarity and strategic action can dismantle unjust systems. Apartheid seemed permanent until it was not. The system that sustained it seemed too powerful to challenge until people challenged it anyway.

I have carried that lesson throughout my career. When people told me that 39th and Prospect could not be transformed, I stood at that intersection and proved them wrong. When people said that firefighters' working conditions could not be improved, I slept in the fire stations until the city invested $276 million. When people said that a kid from Section 8 could not build a national development firm, I built one.

The connection between Tutu's work and mine is not a comparison of scale. It is a shared conviction that unjust conditions are not permanent and that individuals who refuse to accept them can create change.

The press coverage from Kansas City documented every phase of the event: the announcement, the trip, and the presentation itself. Multiple outlets covered the story because it was remarkable by any standard: a sitting Kansas City council member on a world stage, honoring one of the most respected moral leaders in modern history.

That is who we are. Not just local developers with local knowledge. Leaders with a global perspective and a local commitment.

Troost Revitalization

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Ordinance by Nash, Williams-Neal Targets Troost Revitalization

Troost Avenue is the line that divides Kansas City. If you know anything about this city's history, you know that Troost separates the East Side from everything else. It is a physical street and a metaphor. East of Troost is where Black Kansas City lives. West of Troost is where investment flows.

I introduced legislation targeting Troost revitalization because I refused to accept that a street could permanently define which neighborhoods received investment and which did not.

Troost Avenue has been Kansas City's racial and economic dividing line for nearly a century. The legacy of redlining, restrictive covenants, and deliberate disinvestment created two cities within one: a west side with functioning infrastructure, thriving commercial corridors, and rising property values, and an east side with crumbling streets, vacant storefronts, and declining populations.

Working with Councilwoman Williams-Neal, I introduced an ordinance specifically targeting Troost Avenue for revitalization. The legislation created a framework for directing public resources to the corridor, incentivizing private investment, and coordinating the patchwork of city programs that affected the Troost area.

The ordinance was not a cure-all. No single piece of legislation can undo a century of institutional racism. But it was a declaration of intent: the city would no longer treat Troost as an invisible wall. It would treat it as a corridor worthy of investment.

What made this effort significant was not the ordinance itself but what it represented. A sitting city council member was publicly naming the racial divide that shaped Kansas City's geography and introducing legislation to address it. That act of naming matters because you cannot fix a problem you refuse to acknowledge.

The Nash Group carries this work forward in our development practice. When we evaluate sites and corridors for development potential, we do not accept inherited dividing lines. We look at where need is greatest and where investment can produce the most impact.

Beacon Hill Redevelopment: Transforming a Neighborhood

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, multiple years; Developers Launch Beacon Hill Redevelopment Project; Council Members Advance $11 Million Development in 3rd District; Nash Secures Funding for District Projects; Groundbreaking for Wayne Minor Project

Beacon Hill is a neighborhood in Kansas City that tells two stories. The first story is decades of disinvestment: vacant lots, abandoned buildings, crime, and a steady exodus of residents and businesses. The second story is what happens when someone decides that the first story does not have to be the last one.

I decided that in the late 1990s, and I have been working on Beacon Hill ever since. Twenty years of sustained engagement in a single neighborhood. That is not typical in this industry. Most firms follow the capital to wherever the next deal is. We follow the mission to wherever the need is greatest.

The Scope of the Problem

When I first started advocating for Beacon Hill as a city council member, the neighborhood was in advanced decline. The physical signs were impossible to miss: crumbling infrastructure, overgrown lots, buildings that had been vacant so long they had become safety hazards. But the physical decline was just the surface layer of a deeper problem.

Beacon Hill had been systematically disinvested. Capital had left. Services had left. Businesses had left. And the residents who remained were living in conditions that no neighborhood in Kansas City's wealthier areas would have tolerated for a week.

The conventional wisdom in city government was that neighborhoods like Beacon Hill were too far gone to save. The cost of intervention was too high. The market demand was too weak. The political will was insufficient. Better to focus resources on neighborhoods that had a chance of attracting private investment on their own.

I rejected that logic completely. Every neighborhood has a chance if somebody is willing to fight for it.

What We Did

The transformation of Beacon Hill did not happen through a single project or a single action. It happened through sustained, persistent effort over years.

As a council member, I secured public funding for infrastructure improvements, demolition of dangerous structures, and new housing development in the district. The Kansas City Star documented the council's approval of an $11 million development initiative in the Third District. I advanced legislation and ordinances that created the conditions for private investment to follow public investment.

The Beacon Hill Redevelopment Project was a coordinated effort to replace blight with quality development. The strategy was straightforward: remove the worst structures, invest in infrastructure, build new housing, and create momentum that would attract additional investment over time.

The groundbreaking for the Wayne Minor project was one of the early milestones. Named for a community leader who had dedicated his life to the neighborhood, the project signaled that Beacon Hill was no longer being abandoned. It was being rebuilt.

The Long Game

Neighborhood transformation is not a sprint. It is a decades long process that requires patience, persistence, and the ability to sustain effort long after the initial enthusiasm has faded.

The work I started in Beacon Hill as a council member continued through my career as a developer. The Mabion, our $19.3 million affordable housing development financed with 9% LIHTC, is located in Beacon Hill. It represents the latest chapter in a transformation that has been underway for more than 20 years.

That continuity matters. A developer who shows up for one project and leaves is not transforming a neighborhood. They are completing a transaction. A firm that has been engaged with the same community for two decades, through government service and private development, is doing something fundamentally different.

The Outcomes

Beacon Hill today is not the same neighborhood I found in the late 1990s. The abandoned buildings are gone. New housing has been built. Infrastructure has been improved. And The Mabion represents the kind of significant investment that would have been unthinkable two decades ago.

The transformation is not complete. No neighborhood transformation ever is. But the trajectory has changed.

Beacon Hill is the clearest example of what defines The Nash Group. We do not build projects in neighborhoods. We transform neighborhoods through projects. The difference is that we stay. We invest. We fight for public resources. We engage with residents. And we measure our success not by the return on any single development but by the trajectory of the community.

A Higher Calling: Father-Daughter Team Tackles Housing Crisis

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Savoy Magazine, 2022

Savoy Magazine profiled The Nash Group in 2022 with a focus that went beyond my individual career. The article highlighted the father-daughter team structure of the firm and our approach to tackling the national affordable housing crisis across multiple markets.

This case study is important for a specific reason: it is the first time a national publication profiled the firm, not just the founder. That distinction matters because it signals institutional capacity. A firm that depends entirely on one person is fragile. A firm that has multigenerational leadership, a clear succession path, and depth of talent is durable.

The Structure

The Nash Group was built to last beyond any single individual. That is not common in this industry. Most development firms are essentially the personal practices of their founders. The founder's name is on the door, the founder's relationships drive the deal flow, and the founder's expertise is the firm's only product. When the founder retires or moves on, the firm winds down. That is not a plan. That is an outcome you arrive at by failing to plan.

We structured The Nash Group differently. The firm combines my 30 years of experience in government, development, and policy with the next generation's perspective on technology, communication, and market evolution. That combination means we can engage across generations of clients, partners, and community stakeholders.

The firm is designed for continuity. The knowledge that I have accumulated over three decades is being transferred to the next generation of leadership through daily collaboration, not through a manual that gets handed over at retirement. The mentorship is active and ongoing. The institutional knowledge is shared, not siloed.

Why Multigenerational Leadership Matters

The affordable housing crisis is not going to be solved in one generation. The projects we are planning today will serve communities for 30 or 40 years. The policy frameworks we are shaping will evolve over decades. The relationships we are building with investors, lenders, and government agencies will need to be maintained long after any individual retires.

A firm that is built for longevity can make commitments that a sole proprietorship cannot. We can take on long term projects that will not produce results for five or ten years, knowing that the firm will be there to see them through. We can maintain relationships through leadership transitions. We can invest in capabilities that will pay off in the next decade, not just in the next quarter.

The Savoy article recognized this structure and positioned it as a model for how professional services firms in our industry can build institutional capacity while maintaining the personal relationships that drive deal flow.

The National Dimension

The Savoy article also positioned The Nash Group as a national firm, not just a Kansas City firm. Our advisory practice extends across multiple states. Our expertise in LIHTC financing, transit oriented development, and community transformation is applicable in any market where affordable housing is needed, which is to say, every market in America.

The national positioning reflects a deliberate strategy. Kansas City is our home, and it will always be central to our work. But the housing crisis is national, and the skills we have developed are transferable. A developer who can navigate Missouri's QAP can navigate any state's QAP with the right local knowledge. A consultant who understands how tax credit deals are structured can advise clients in any market.

What The Article Told The Market

The Savoy profile told the market three things. First, The Nash Group has institutional depth. We are not a one person operation. Second, we are thinking long term. The firm is structured for continuity. Third, we are national in scope. While many firms in our space are regional, we operate across markets and bring a breadth of experience that enriches every engagement.

Defying the Odds: UMKC Law Alumni Achievement Award

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: UMKC School of Law, 2017

In 2017, the UMKC School of Law honored me with its Alumni Achievement Award. The award recognized what the law school described as a career built on defying the odds: from public housing to a distinguished career spanning law, government, real estate development, and education.

I appreciate the recognition, but what I value more is what the award represents. A law school does not give its alumni achievement award to someone who simply practiced law successfully. They give it to someone whose legal education became a foundation for impact that extended far beyond the courtroom.

What Law School Actually Taught Me

People assume lawyers learn to argue. That is the least important thing law school teaches. What law school actually teaches is how to read complex systems, identify the rules that govern those systems, and use those rules to achieve outcomes.

Real estate development is a system governed by rules. Zoning codes. Building codes. Tax credit regulations. Environmental requirements. Fair housing laws. Public incentive statutes. Every project I have developed operates within a web of legal frameworks that most developers navigate by hiring lawyers. I navigate them because I am one.

The legal training I received at UMKC gave me a direct advantage in development that has compounded over 30 years. When I structure a LIHTC deal, I understand the Internal Revenue Code provisions that govern tax credit allocation. When I negotiate a TIF agreement, I understand the statutory framework that authorizes tax increment financing. When I engage with community opposition, I understand the legal rights of all parties involved.

This is not abstract knowledge. It is operational capability. The difference between a developer who understands the law and one who depends on outside counsel for every question is the difference between a firm that moves quickly and one that waits for legal review at every decision point.

The legal training also taught me how to read contracts with precision. In affordable housing development, the contracts are complex: partnership agreements with tax credit investors, construction contracts with general contractors, loan agreements with lenders, regulatory agreements with housing agencies. Each document contains provisions that affect the project's risk profile, timeline, and financial performance. A developer who signs contracts without understanding them is accepting risks that a legally trained developer would negotiate away.

The Odds That Were Defied

The law school specifically cited my background in framing the award. A kid from public housing earning a law degree and using it to build a career of national significance was not a likely outcome. The statistics on educational attainment for people from my background are clear: the vast majority do not finish college, let alone law school, let alone build careers that warrant alumni achievement awards.

I am not interested in presenting myself as an exception that proves the rule. I am interested in presenting myself as evidence that the rule is wrong. The barriers I overcame were systemic, not personal. I had the ability from the beginning. What I lacked was access. The access came through education, through mentors who believed in me, and through my own refusal to accept anyone else's assessment of my potential.

The law degree was one of nine degrees, and each one was a tool for a specific purpose. The law degree was arguably the most versatile because legal reasoning applies to everything: development, policy, governance, education, and advocacy. It is the Swiss Army knife of professional credentials.

What This Award Told Me

The alumni achievement award told me that the institution recognized the arc. Not just the degree, but what I did with it. Government service. Community activism. National recognition. Institutional leadership. All of it built on a legal education that gave me the analytical tools to operate in complex environments.

It also told me that UMKC takes pride in graduates who use their education for community impact, not just personal success. The law school could have given this award to someone who built a lucrative practice at a major firm. Instead, they gave it to someone who used a legal education to transform neighborhoods, shape policy, and teach the next generation.

That alignment between institutional values and personal mission is why I stayed connected to UMKC throughout my career. The university invested in me. I have spent 30 years repaying that investment by giving back to the institution and the community it serves.

Every skill I use at The Nash Group has roots in my legal education. Contract negotiation. Regulatory compliance. Risk assessment. Stakeholder management. These are legal skills applied to development contexts. Clients who work with us benefit from a firm led by someone who does not just understand the business side of development but the legal side as well.

The UMKC School of Law gave me the foundation. The alumni achievement award in 2017 was the acknowledgment that the foundation held.

Leading a Delegation to Cuba

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Councilman Leads Delegation to Cuba; Nash Leads Mission to Cuba; Troy Nash Leads Group to Cuba; Cuba Healthcare and Education Systems Viewed as Success

In the early 2000s, I led a delegation from Kansas City to Cuba. At a time when few American politicians were willing to engage with the island nation, I organized a trip to study two things that Cuba does better than most countries on earth: healthcare delivery and public education.

This was not a diplomatic mission. It was a fact-finding trip. I wanted to see firsthand how a small island nation with limited resources had achieved healthcare outcomes and literacy rates that rivaled or exceeded the wealthiest nations in the world. And I wanted to understand whether any of those approaches could be applied to the underserved communities I represented back home.

What We Found

Cuba's healthcare system is built on a model of community-based primary care that puts a doctor in every neighborhood. Not a clinic miles away. A doctor on your block. Cubans have longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality than many populations in the United States, despite having a fraction of the resources.

Cuba's education system has achieved near-universal literacy through a commitment to public education that treats it as a national priority, not a budget line item. Every child goes to school. Every school is funded. The results are measurable and documented.

These outcomes are not about politics. They are about priorities. Cuba decided that healthcare and education were too important to leave to market forces. Whether you agree with their system of government or not, the outcomes in these two areas are difficult to argue with.

Why I Went

I went because the neighborhoods I represented in Kansas City had healthcare outcomes that resembled a developing nation, not a global superpower. High infant mortality. Low life expectancy. Limited access to primary care. These were not new problems. They were decades old, and the conventional American approach — building hospitals and hoping people could afford to use them — was not working.

Cuba offered a different model. A model that started with the community and built the healthcare system around it, rather than building a system and hoping the community could navigate to it. I wanted to see whether that model could inform how we delivered services in Kansas City's underserved neighborhoods.

The delegation included community leaders, healthcare professionals, and educators from Kansas City. We toured hospitals, clinics, schools, and community centers. We met with Cuban officials and professionals who explained their systems. And we returned to Kansas City with ideas that we incorporated into our work.

The Connection to Our Development Work

The Cuba trip reinforced a principle that has guided every Nash Group project since: you cannot solve community problems in isolation. Housing is connected to healthcare. Healthcare is connected to education. Education is connected to economic opportunity. Effective development addresses the whole ecosystem, not just one component.

The Ville Wellness Campus in St. Louis, which integrates 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center, is a direct descendant of the thinking that began on that trip to Cuba. The idea that you should co-locate healthcare with housing, that proximity to services matters as much as the services themselves, was reinforced by what I saw in Cuba's neighborhood-based healthcare model.

Leading a delegation to Cuba required courage. This was not a politically safe trip. Relations between the United States and Cuba were contentious. Some people questioned why a Kansas City council member was engaging with a country that many Americans viewed with suspicion.

I went anyway because the lessons were too important to leave on the table. Good ideas do not carry passports. They work or they do not, regardless of where they originated.

The multiple press outlets that covered the trip documented both the factual findings and the willingness to take calculated risks: "Councilman Leads Delegation to Cuba." "Nash Leads Mission to Cuba." "Troy Nash Leads Group to Cuba." "Cuba Healthcare and Education Systems Viewed as Success."

Leading Real Estate Innovation at UMKC

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Startland News, 2025

Startland News published a Q&A with me in 2025 about the future of real estate education at UMKC. The conversation covered what I believe the next generation of real estate professionals needs to know and how the Lewis White Real Estate Center is evolving to deliver it.

The premise of the interview was straightforward: real estate is changing. Technology is changing how we analyze markets, structure deals, and manage properties. Data analytics is changing how we identify opportunities and measure outcomes. Community expectations are changing what development is supposed to accomplish. And the educational institutions that train real estate professionals need to change with them.

What I Told Startland

I laid out a vision for real estate education that integrates three elements most programs treat separately.

First, technology. The tools available to real estate professionals today are fundamentally different from what was available even ten years ago. Geographic information systems, machine learning models for market analysis, and digital platforms for community engagement are not futuristic concepts. They are current tools that students need to understand and use. A graduate who cannot use GIS to analyze site characteristics is entering the workforce with a handicap. A developer who cannot interpret a data-driven market forecast is making decisions with incomplete information.

Second, data analytics. The real estate industry has historically made decisions based on relationships, intuition, and experience. Those things still matter. But they are increasingly supplemented by data that can identify market trends, evaluate risk, and measure outcomes with a precision that gut feeling cannot match. Students who cannot work with data will be at a competitive disadvantage within five years.

Third, community development principles. This is the piece that most real estate programs neglect entirely. They teach students how to maximize returns without teaching them how to evaluate the community impact of their projects. That gap produces professionals who can build profitable developments that damage neighborhoods. We are closing that gap at UMKC by embedding community impact analysis into the core curriculum.

Why Innovation Matters

Some people in real estate education believe that the fundamentals do not change. In a sense, they are right. Supply and demand still drive markets. Capital still flows to the highest risk adjusted return. Location still matters. These principles are permanent.

But the application of those principles is evolving rapidly. A consultant who cannot engage a community through digital platforms as well as town hall meetings is reaching half the audience. A developer who does not understand how data can optimize site selection is leaving value on the table.

The Lewis White Real Estate Center is positioning UMKC's real estate program at the intersection of traditional fundamentals and emerging capabilities. We are not abandoning the basics. We are expanding the toolkit.

The Practice-Theory Integration

What makes UMKC's approach distinctive is that the person leading the innovation has done the work. I am not an academic theorist speculating about what the industry might need. I am a practitioner who builds projects, advises clients, and navigates the regulatory environment daily. The innovations I am bringing to the curriculum are drawn from what I see working in practice.

When I integrate data analytics into the curriculum, it is because I have seen how data improves decision making in our own projects. When I emphasize community engagement, it is because I have experienced the consequences of ignoring it and the benefits of doing it well. When I bring technology into the classroom, it is because our firm uses these tools and I can show students exactly how they apply.

This practice-theory integration is what Startland recognized in the interview. They covered it because it signals that UMKC is not just maintaining a traditional program. It is actively evolving to produce graduates who can compete in an industry that is changing faster than most educational institutions can adapt.

The housing crisis is not going to be solved with yesterday's methods. It requires innovation in financing, in design, in community engagement, and in how we train the people who will do this work for the next 30 years. That is what we are building at UMKC.

Quindaro Townsite: Reimagining a National Historic Landmark

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Current project with Taliaferro and Browne, 2025-2026

Quindaro is a 56 acre National Historic Landmark on the Missouri River bluffs in Kansas City, Kansas. It was a free state town. An Underground Railroad station. A place where enslaved people crossed from Missouri into Kansas and found freedom. The National Park Service designated it as a National Historic Landmark in May 2025, recognizing its significance not just to Kansas City but to the history of this country.

The Nash Group is providing commercial development and urban core planning services for the Quindaro Townsite feasibility study, working as a subconsultant to Taliaferro and Browne, Inc. for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas.

This is one of the most complex and important projects we have ever undertaken.

Why Quindaro Is Different

Most development projects start with a financial question: what can we build here that will generate a return? Quindaro starts with a different question: how do you honor the historical significance of a site while creating economic value for the community that surrounds it?

These two objectives can conflict. Preservation requirements limit what can be built. Environmental constraints on the bluff site add complexity. The community has deep emotional connections to the site that go beyond typical stakeholder engagement. And the Unified Government has expectations for economic development outcomes that must be balanced against preservation mandates.

The site itself presents unique physical challenges. The Missouri River bluffs create dramatic topography that limits buildable area. Archaeological resources on the site require careful evaluation before any ground disturbance. Environmental conditions associated with the river frontage introduce regulatory requirements that do not apply to typical development sites.

But the challenges are matched by the significance of the opportunity. Quindaro is not just a local landmark. It is a National Historic Landmark that tells a story central to American history. The Underground Railroad, the struggle for freedom, the courage of people who risked everything to cross from slavery to liberty — these are stories that deserve to be told in a setting that honors their significance.

Our Role

The Nash Group's scope of work focuses on commercial development strategy and urban core planning for the Quindaro site. We are evaluating the commercial viability of development scenarios that are compatible with the site's historic designation and environmental constraints.

This involves analyzing what types of commercial activity can be supported by the site's location, access, and market context. It involves identifying development models from comparable National Historic Landmark sites across the country — we conducted research on 35 case studies across 6 categories of similar sites. And it involves designing a commercial framework that creates jobs, generates revenue, and attracts visitors while preserving the site's historical integrity.

We are not working alone. Taliaferro and Browne, Inc., the prime consultant, brings engineering and environmental expertise that is essential for a site with the physical complexity of the Quindaro bluffs. The Unified Government brings the community's expectations and the public resources needed to move from study to implementation. Our role is to ensure that the commercial development component is viable, sensitive, and aligned with everyone's objectives.

The Broader Significance

Quindaro is not just a Kansas City project. It is a national project. The designation as a National Historic Landmark places it in the same category as other sites that tell the story of America's struggle with itself.

The feasibility study we are contributing to will determine what happens next for this site. Done well, Quindaro can become a destination that tells the story of freedom and resistance while generating economic opportunity for the surrounding community. Done poorly, it risks becoming a park that nobody visits, a designation without a plan, a landmark with no living legacy.

We are working to ensure the first outcome, not the second. That means being honest about what the market will support, creative about how to generate revenue without compromising the site's integrity, and persistent about ensuring that the surrounding community benefits from whatever development occurs.

Not every development firm can do this work. The firms that can are the ones that understand development as a social activity, not just a financial one. We are one of those firms, and Quindaro is the proof.

First African American Student Curator: University of Missouri

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: University of Missouri records, 1996; Nash Appointed to Board of Curators; Student Curator Nash Represents Campus; Student Curator Approaches End of Term; UM Student Curator Troy Nash Ends Term with a Mission; Carnahan Nominates Nash for Student Rep

On January 4, 1996, Governor Mel Carnahan nominated me to be the next student representative to the University of Missouri Board of Curators. I was 26 years old, a law student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a graduate of Wesley's College in Dover, Delaware, a veteran of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and I held a master's degree in economics from UMKC while pursuing a doctoral degree in economics. I was young. The board was not.

The Board of Curators governs the entire University of Missouri system: four campuses, a health system, a research enterprise, and a budget that runs into the billions. The curators make decisions about tuition, facilities, academic programs, and institutional strategy. They are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. I would succeed UM-Rolla student Gayatri Bhatt, whose two-year term had expired in December.

What The Appointment Meant

Being the first means something different than being the second or the fifth. The first carries the weight of every person who came before and did not get the opportunity. It carries the expectation of every person watching who hopes you will open the door wider for the next one. And it carries the scrutiny of every person who questions whether you belong at that table.

I was 26 years old, sitting in meetings with university presidents, business leaders, and political appointees who had decades more experience than I did. The conversations were about budgets in the hundreds of millions, capital projects, enrollment strategy, faculty hiring, and research priorities. I was expected to contribute meaningfully, and I did.

The press covered the appointment extensively. Multiple outlets documented both the historic significance and the substance of my service. "Nash Appointed to Board of Curators." "Student Curator Nash Represents Campus." "Carnahan Nominates Nash for Student Rep." When my term ended, the coverage noted that I had used the position not just as an honor but as a platform for advocacy on issues of access, equity, and student representation. "UM Student Curator Troy Nash Ends Term with a Mission."

What I Learned At That Table

The Board of Curators was my first experience with institutional governance at scale. It taught me how large organizations make decisions, how budgets are structured, how competing priorities are balanced, and how the people at the top of complex institutions think about risk, investment, and strategy.

These are the same skills I use today on every board I serve on. When I sit on the board of JDRC, or Paramount Bank, or the University of Health Sciences, I bring a comfort with institutional governance that started at the University of Missouri when I was 26.

The curatorship also taught me that representation matters in operational terms, not just symbolic ones. When I raised issues of access and equity in board discussions, I was bringing perspectives that the other curators had not considered. Not because they were bad people, but because they had not lived those realities. My presence at the table changed what the table discussed.

That lesson has stayed with me for 30 years. When The Nash Group engages with communities, with government agencies, and with institutional partners, we bring perspectives that are often absent from the conversation. We bring the perspective of someone who grew up in public housing. We bring the perspective of someone who has served in government and seen the system from the inside. We bring the perspective of someone who has built projects in neighborhoods that most developers ignore. Those perspectives change the conversation, just as my presence on the Board of Curators changed the conversation at the University of Missouri.

The Through Line

People sometimes look at my resume and wonder how student governance connects to affordable housing development. The connection is direct.

Institutional governance teaches you how to navigate complex systems with competing stakeholders. A university board manages the interests of students, faculty, administrators, legislators, donors, and the public. An affordable housing development manages the interests of residents, investors, lenders, city officials, state agencies, and community organizations. The skill set is the same: listen to everyone, understand the constraints, find the alignment, and make a decision that moves things forward.

The curatorship was the beginning of a career built on navigating complex institutional environments. The Kansas City Council, the Missouri Housing Commission, corporate boards, university leadership — each one built on the governance skills I first developed as a student curator.

Governor Carnahan saw something in a young Black student that warranted a seat at one of the most powerful tables in Missouri's educational system. Thirty years later, that instinct has been validated by a career that spans government, academia, the private sector, and community service. The table got larger, but the approach stayed the same: show up, prepare, contribute, and leave the institution better than you found it.

Taking On Illegal Dumping: Environmental Justice

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Illegal Dumping Riles KC Council; Dumping Prevention Program Isn't a Waste; Nash and Trash; Councilman Nash Tackles Weeds; Councilman Nash Tackles Litter Control; Project ROAR Will Help Clean Up Kansas City

Let me tell you about garbage. Not the metaphorical kind. The literal kind that people dump on vacant lots in neighborhoods where nobody in power is paying attention.

Illegal dumping in the Third District was not a nuisance. It was an environmental justice issue. Companies and individuals were treating the vacant lots and alleys of Black neighborhoods as free landfills. Old tires. Construction debris. Household waste. Hazardous materials. The kind of refuse that would trigger immediate enforcement action if it appeared in a Country Club Plaza parking lot was accumulating in the neighborhoods I represented without consequence.

I tackled this issue with the same intensity I brought to everything else on the council: directly, publicly, and persistently.

The Problem

Illegal dumping is a symptom of a larger disease. When a neighborhood is neglected, when code enforcement is weak, when vacant lots proliferate, when the city's presence has essentially evaporated, dumpers treat the neighborhood as a cost-free disposal site. They save themselves the landfill fee and pass the cost to the community in the form of contaminated soil, rodent infestation, reduced property values, and public health risks.

The environmental justice dimension is clear: illegal dumping concentrates in low income communities and communities of color. This is not coincidence. It is a direct consequence of enforcement patterns that prioritize some neighborhoods over others. When a dumper calculates where to unload a truckload of construction debris, they choose the neighborhood where the chance of getting caught is lowest. That neighborhood is almost always a Black neighborhood on the East Side.

The health impacts are real and documented. Illegally dumped materials attract rodents and insects. Construction debris can contain lead paint chips and asbestos. Old tires fill with standing water that breeds mosquitoes. Household chemicals seep into the soil and contaminate groundwater. The people who live near illegal dump sites experience higher rates of respiratory illness, skin conditions, and other health problems directly attributable to the materials that have been dumped in their neighborhood.

What I Did

I introduced legislation and directed city resources to combat illegal dumping in the Third District. The approach was multi-pronged: enforcement, prevention, and cleanup.

On enforcement, I pushed for stronger penalties for dumping and better coordination between the city's code enforcement division and the police department. Dumping is not a victimless quality of life offense. It is environmental contamination that harms residents' health and property values. The penalties needed to reflect that reality, and the enforcement needed to be consistent enough to create genuine deterrence.

On prevention, I supported the development of a dumping prevention program that the Kansas City Star covered favorably, noting that the program was a practical approach to a persistent problem. Prevention meant making it harder to dump and easier to get caught. That included better lighting on vacant lots, camera monitoring in known dump sites, and partnerships with neighborhood associations to report dumping activity.

On cleanup, I championed Project ROAR, a city-wide cleanup initiative that mobilized volunteers and city resources to clear illegally dumped materials from neighborhoods. The Kansas City Star covered the initiative as a significant effort to address a problem that had been ignored for too long. Project ROAR was not just a cleanup event. It was a statement: these neighborhoods deserve the same environmental quality that the rest of the city enjoys.

I also tackled the related issues of weed abatement and litter control. These are not glamorous issues. No politician has ever built a national profile on weed control. But in neighborhoods where vacant lots were waist-high with weeds and alleys were filled with litter, these issues affected quality of life in immediate, daily, visible ways.

The Kansas City Star covered these efforts with headlines that captured the substance: "Illegal Dumping Riles KC Council." "Dumping Prevention Program Isn't a Waste." "Nash and Trash." "Councilman Nash Tackles Weeds." "Councilman Nash Tackles Litter Control." "Project ROAR Will Help Clean Up Kansas City." Each headline represented another step in a sustained campaign to improve the physical environment of the Third District.

Why This Matters

Environmental justice is community development. When a neighborhood's physical environment is degraded — when lots are dumping grounds, when weeds obscure sidewalks, when litter accumulates in every public space — the message to residents is clear: nobody cares about where you live.

Reversing that message requires sustained investment in the physical environment. Not as an aesthetic exercise, but as a statement of value. Every weed cut, every illegal dump cleaned up, every litter initiative completed says to the community: you matter, your neighborhood matters, and the conditions you have been forced to live with are not acceptable.

The Nash Group carries this philosophy into every development project. Site condition is not an afterthought. It is the first impression a project makes on the community and the market. When we develop a site, we leave the surrounding area better than we found it, because a clean, well-maintained environment is the foundation on which community trust is built.

The fact that illegal dumping concentrates in low income communities of color is not a mystery. It is a predictable outcome of enforcement patterns that have historically allocated more resources to wealthier neighborhoods. Changing those patterns requires elected officials who are willing to fight for equitable enforcement and who understand that environmental quality is not a luxury reserved for affluent communities.

I was that elected official. The press documented every initiative, every cleanup, every piece of legislation. And the principle that drove all of it — that every community deserves a clean, safe physical environment — is the same principle that drives The Nash Group's work today.

50 Missourians You Should Know

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Ingram's Magazine, 2015

In 2015, Ingram's Magazine named me among the 50 Missourians You Should Know. If you do business in the Kansas City region, you know Ingram's. It is the premier business publication in the market. The people who read it are the investors, lenders, developers, elected officials, and business leaders who make the Kansas City economy run.

Being named to this list meant that the business establishment in my home market had independently concluded that my career warranted attention. The profile covered the full arc: public housing as a child, nine degrees, government service, real estate development, academic leadership, and the personal narrative that ties it all together.

The Value of Regional Recognition

National recognition from Savoy Magazine tells the world that you matter. Regional recognition from Ingram's tells your home market that you matter. Both are essential, but for different reasons.

National recognition opens doors with partners, investors, and clients in other markets. It creates credibility when you walk into a room where nobody knows your name. Regional recognition deepens relationships in the market where you live and work. The people who read Ingram's are the people you sit across the table from in Kansas City. They are the lenders who underwrite your deals, the investors who participate in your capital stacks, the elected officials who approve your projects, and the community leaders who support or oppose your developments.

When those people see your name in the publication they trust most, it changes how they engage with you. Not because of the article itself, but because the article confirms what their own experience has shown them: this is a serious person doing serious work.

Ingram's does not feature people casually. The editorial team evaluates hundreds of candidates for the 50 Missourians list. They look at career trajectory, community impact, professional accomplishment, and statewide significance. Making that cut means that the editors believe you are one of the 50 people in the entire state who warrant the attention of their readership.

What The Profile Covered

The Ingram's profile was comprehensive. It covered my background in public housing and the personal journey that led to nine academic degrees. It covered my service on the Kansas City Council and the activism that defined my time in government. It covered the transition to real estate development and the advisory practice that became The Nash Group. And it covered the appointments to boards and commissions that extended my influence beyond any single project or role.

What the profile captured, more than any single fact, was the trajectory. The story of someone who started with nothing and built a career that touches multiple sectors — government, education, real estate, nonprofit leadership, corporate governance — is unusual enough to warrant a feature in a publication that has seen every kind of success story the region has to offer.

How This Connects To Our Work

The Nash Group operates in Kansas City and across multiple markets. In Kansas City, our reputation is established. People know us. They know our projects. They know our track record. The Ingram's recognition is documentation of what the market already understands.

In other markets, the Ingram's profile serves as an introduction. When we pursue projects or advisory engagements outside Kansas City, the profile provides a comprehensive, third-party account of who we are and what we have accomplished. It is more credible than anything we could write about ourselves because it was written by a publication with no financial relationship to our firm.

For prospective clients in any market, the takeaway is straightforward: The Nash Group is led by someone whose career has been validated by the most respected business publication in the region. That validation is based on 30 years of documented accomplishment, not a single project or a single year.

Saving Leon's Thriftway and Seven Oaks Shopping Center

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Ordinance Introduced to Save Seven Oaks Shopping Center and Leon's Thriftway; Ordinance Introduced to Save Local Grocery Store; Supporters Work to Bag ALDI Grocery for East Side

When a grocery store closes in a suburban neighborhood, it is an inconvenience. Residents drive to the next one. When a grocery store closes in an inner city neighborhood where it is the only source of fresh food for miles, it is a crisis.

Leon's Thriftway at Seven Oaks Shopping Center was that kind of grocery store. It served a community on Kansas City's East Side that had no alternative. When the store faced closure, I introduced an ordinance to save it.

The Stakes

Seven Oaks Shopping Center was more than a strip mall. It was the commercial anchor of its neighborhood. Leon's Thriftway was the grocery store that residents depended on for fresh food. Without it, the nearest grocery was miles away, accessible only by car in a neighborhood where many residents relied on public transit.

The closure was not a market correction. It was the latest chapter in a pattern of commercial retreat from Black neighborhoods that had been playing out for decades across Kansas City. Retailers left. Services left. Investment left. And residents were expected to accept it because the market had decided their neighborhood was not worth serving.

I did not accept it. I introduced an ordinance to protect the shopping center and the grocery store because losing them would have been devastating for the community. The ordinance was a legislative tool to create the conditions for the grocery store to remain viable. It involved public incentives, zoning protections, and coordination between the city, the property owner, and the grocery operator to find a path forward.

The Fight

The Kansas City Star covered the effort from multiple angles. "Ordinance Introduced to Save Seven Oaks Shopping Center and Leon's Thriftway." "Ordinance Introduced to Save Local Grocery Store." "Supporters Work to Bag ALDI Grocery for East Side." These stories captured a community fighting for its most basic commercial infrastructure. Not a luxury retailer. Not an entertainment venue. A grocery store.

The fact that a city council member had to introduce legislation to preserve a grocery store tells you everything about the priorities of the market and the government that was supposed to regulate it. In a just city, no neighborhood would lose its only grocery store because the economics did not work for the corporate chain. In the real Kansas City, this was happening regularly, and the only defense was political action.

The ALDI campaign was a parallel effort that complemented the Leon's Thriftway fight. ALDI's business model, with its lower operating costs and discount pricing, was better suited to serve low income markets. But even ALDI required persuasion. We had to demonstrate market demand, secure public incentives, and overcome the same site selection biases that had kept other grocers out.

The community's response to these efforts was overwhelming. Residents turned out at meetings. They wrote letters. They signed petitions. They made it clear that grocery access was not a nice-to-have amenity. It was a necessity that they were willing to fight for. And their elected representative was willing to fight alongside them.

The Lesson For Development

Grocery anchored development is one of the most impactful investments you can make in an underserved neighborhood. A grocery store provides fresh food, creates jobs, generates foot traffic for adjacent businesses, and signals to the market that a neighborhood is viable.

The fight to save Leon's Thriftway taught me that grocery access should not depend on market conditions alone. When the market fails a community, government must intervene. And when government intervenes effectively, it can create the conditions for the market to return.

That lesson informs every mixed use development plan The Nash Group creates. We evaluate the retail environment as part of our site analysis. We advocate for grocery inclusion in neighborhood development plans. And we understand, from direct experience, what happens to a community when its last grocery store disappears.

The broader pattern of commercial advocacy that included the Leon's Thriftway fight, the ALDI campaign, and the eventual grocery-anchored groundbreaking at 39th and Prospect represents one of the most sustained economic development efforts in the Third District's history. Each battle was part of a longer war to ensure that East Side residents had the same access to fresh food that every other part of the city took for granted.

We were willing to fight that war. The record shows it.

The Mabion: 57 Homes for Beacon Hill

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Mass Transit Magazine, 2023

The Mabion is a $19.3 million affordable housing development in Kansas City's Beacon Hill neighborhood. Fifty seven homes. Financed using 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credits. If those numbers do not mean much to you, let me put it in context.

Nine percent LIHTC allocations are the most competitive financing mechanism in affordable housing. Nationally, fewer than 30 percent of applicants receive an award. Every state housing agency in the country has more applications than credits to give. To win a 9% allocation, your project has to score at the top of the state's Qualified Allocation Plan. Your capital stack has to work. Your community support has to be documented. Your development team has to be credible. And you have to beat out every other developer in the state who wants those same credits.

We won that competition. And we delivered.

The Neighborhood

Beacon Hill sits just south of Kansas City's downtown core. It is a neighborhood that has experienced decades of disinvestment, the kind of slow withdrawal of private capital that leaves visible scars: vacant lots, boarded buildings, and a sense among residents that nobody in power cares what happens there.

I have been working on Beacon Hill since the late 1990s, when I first started advocating for the neighborhood as a city council member. Back then, the conventional wisdom in city government was that neighborhoods like Beacon Hill were too far gone to save. The cost of intervention was too high. The market demand was too weak. The political will was insufficient. Better to focus resources on neighborhoods that had a chance of attracting private investment on their own.

I rejected that logic completely. Every neighborhood has a chance if somebody is willing to fight for it. And I fought for Beacon Hill for two decades before The Mabion was built.

The Mabion was designed to reverse the narrative of decline. Not with promises or plans but with physical evidence. Fifty seven homes on a site that had been neglected for years, built to a standard that says to the neighborhood: you are worth this level of investment.

The name itself is intentional. Every Nash Group project carries a name that connects to the community it serves. The Mabion is rooted in the history of Beacon Hill, and the building is designed to honor that history while creating something new.

The Capital Stack

Affordable housing development is fundamentally a financing puzzle. You cannot charge market rate rents because your tenants cannot afford them. That means your operating income is lower, which means your project value is lower, which means you need creative sources of capital to close the gap.

The Mabion's $19.3 million capital stack was assembled using 9% LIHTC equity as the primary source, supplemented by additional public and private financing. The tax credit equity covered approximately 60 to 70 percent of the total development cost, with the remaining gap filled through a combination of soft loans, grants, and conventional debt.

Let me explain how this works in practice, because the complexity is what separates firms that can do this work from firms that cannot. A 9% LIHTC deal requires you to simultaneously satisfy the requirements of at least four or five different capital sources. The tax credit investor needs a specific return profile, specific compliance guarantees, and specific legal protections. The conventional lender needs a debt coverage ratio that demonstrates the project can service its loan payments from rental income. The state housing agency needs evidence that the project meets their QAP priorities and will actually get completed. The city needs evidence that the project will generate community benefit. And any soft loan or grant provider has their own reporting and compliance requirements.

Your job as a developer is to make all of those requirements work together in a single project. That means the rent structure has to satisfy the lender's underwriting while remaining affordable to the tenants. The construction budget has to be realistic enough for the investor while delivering quality that the community deserves. The timeline has to be aggressive enough to satisfy the tax credit delivery requirements while being realistic enough that you can actually build the building.

Structuring this kind of deal requires understanding not just the numbers but the relationships. We know these investors, these lenders, and these agencies because we have worked with them for years. That institutional knowledge is not available to firms that are new to LIHTC development, and it is one of the reasons The Mabion was successfully financed and delivered.

The Outcome

Fifty seven families now live in quality affordable housing in Beacon Hill. Those families have stable rents, modern amenities, and a home in a neighborhood that is actively being transformed. The Mabion is not the only investment in Beacon Hill, but it is one of the most significant, and it sends a clear signal to other developers and investors that this neighborhood is worth betting on.

The ripple effect of a project like this extends far beyond the 57 units. When you build quality housing in a disinvested neighborhood, you attract retail. You attract services. You attract other developers who see that the market is moving. You create a cycle of reinvestment that builds on itself.

I have watched this cycle work in Beacon Hill over 20 years. The neighborhood today is not the same place I found in the late 1990s. The abandoned buildings are gone. New housing has been built. Infrastructure has been improved. And The Mabion represents the kind of significant investment that would have been unthinkable two decades ago.

What This Project Demonstrates

The Mabion demonstrates three things about The Nash Group.

First, we can compete for and win the most competitive financing in affordable housing. A 9% LIHTC allocation is not given to firms that fill out applications. It is given to firms that score at the top. That requires deep knowledge of state QAP criteria, strong community relationships, and a development plan that the housing agency believes will actually get executed.

Second, we build in neighborhoods that others have abandoned. Beacon Hill was not an easy site. It required patience, community engagement, and a willingness to invest in a place that most developers had written off. That is what we do. We do not chase easy projects in strong markets. We go where the need is greatest and where the impact will be most significant.

Third, we deliver. The distance between a tax credit allocation and a completed building is measured in years of construction management, compliance, and problem solving. Every affordable housing developer can tell you about the deals that fell apart: the contractor who went over budget, the environmental issue that delayed construction, the investor who backed out. The ones who succeed are the ones who solve those problems without losing the project. The Mabion is not a plan or a proposal. It is a building with families living in it. That is the only metric that matters.

Oasis in a Food Desert

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, 2013; additional press coverage from 2001-2004

Try this exercise. Drive east from downtown Kansas City, through the Third District neighborhoods I represented on the Council. Count the full service grocery stores. When I started this fight in the early 2000s, the answer in large stretches of the East Side was zero.

Residents in my district had to travel miles to buy fresh food. Not because they chose to live far from grocery stores. Because grocery chains had decided their neighborhoods were not worth investing in. The market had spoken, and it said these families did not deserve fresh vegetables within walking distance.

I rejected that verdict. And then I spent years fighting to reverse it.

The Problem

A food desert is not a natural phenomenon. It is a business decision compounded by decades of disinvestment. Grocery chains follow rooftops and income. When a neighborhood's population declines and incomes drop, the grocers leave. When the grocers leave, residents are left with convenience stores and fast food. When your primary food options are processed snacks and drive-through meals, the health consequences are predictable: diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and shortened lives.

This was the reality in multiple neighborhoods across Kansas City's East Side. Not a theoretical problem discussed at urban planning conferences. A daily reality for families trying to feed their children.

The economics of grocery retail work against low income communities in ways that most people do not understand. Grocery stores operate on razor thin margins, typically 1 to 3 percent net profit. That means a grocery operator needs high volume to survive, and high volume requires a customer base with sufficient purchasing power. When household incomes are low, the per-transaction revenue is lower, and the store needs even more volume to make the numbers work. Add higher insurance costs, higher shrinkage rates, and the increased security expenses that come with operating in high-crime areas, and the financial model becomes challenging.

None of that excuses the outcome. The fact that the economics are difficult does not make it acceptable for entire neighborhoods to go without fresh food. It means that the market alone cannot solve this problem. Public intervention is required.

What We Did

As a city councilman representing the Third District, I made grocery access a priority. This was not a popular cause with other council members. Grocery stores are not glamorous. They do not generate the kind of headlines that downtown sports arenas produce. But they are the most basic infrastructure a neighborhood needs, and my constituents were living without them.

The work started with the campaign to save Leon's Thriftway at Seven Oaks Shopping Center. Leon's was the grocery store that served one of the most underserved areas of the East Side. When the store faced closure, it was not just a business failing. It was a community lifeline being cut. I introduced an ordinance to preserve the grocery and the shopping center, using every legislative tool available to create the conditions for the store to remain viable.

The Kansas City Star and other outlets covered the fight extensively. This was not abstract policy. This was a community fighting to keep its only source of fresh food. The headlines documented each phase: "Ordinance Introduced to Save Seven Oaks Shopping Center and Leon's Thriftway." "Ordinance Introduced to Save Local Grocery Store." The coverage put public pressure on the city to act, and it worked.

We also worked to bring an ALDI grocery store to the East Side. ALDI's expansion into urban core neighborhoods was a strategic opportunity that we pursued aggressively. ALDI's business model, with its lower operating costs and discount pricing structure, was better suited to low income markets than traditional full-service grocers. But getting a national grocery chain to commit to a location that other retailers had written off still required persistent advocacy, public incentive packages, and proof that the market demand existed.

The Kansas City Star covered the community celebration when the ALDI location was confirmed. "Supporters work to bag Aldi grocery for East Side." "ALDI Continues Expansion." "Celebrating New Grocery Store." These were not just headlines. They were documentation of what happens when a community and its elected representative refuse to accept that they do not deserve fresh food.

I first approached ALDI about building in the neighborhood in 2004. The tax incentive plan was approved in 2006. Then came years of delays: land acquisition that required condemnation of two parcels, the recession, environmental remediation of underground petroleum storage tanks, and amendments to the TIF plan when officials realized many customers would use food stamps exempt from sales taxes. The broader effort culminated in a groundbreaking for the 16,850 square foot ALDI grocery store at 39th and Prospect on July 30, 2013 — nine years after I first proposed it. By then I had left the Council, and my successor in the Third District, Councilman Jermaine Reed, carried the project across the finish line. The Kansas City Star covered that groundbreaking with the headline "Oasis in a food desert finally has groundbreaking." ALDI invested $3.5 million, with tax incentives bringing the total project to about $5 million. That headline says everything about how long this fight took and how important the outcome was.

Why It Took So Long

Bringing grocery access to underserved neighborhoods is harder than it should be. National chains use site selection criteria that systematically screen out low income neighborhoods: household income thresholds, population density requirements, traffic counts. These criteria are race neutral on paper but discriminatory in practice, because they filter out exactly the neighborhoods that need grocery access most.

Breaking through those criteria requires a combination of public subsidy, community advocacy, and a developer willing to take on the risk. You have to prove to a grocery operator that the demand is real, that the public support is in place, and that the neighborhood will support the store once it opens.

That takes years. It requires patience that most elected officials and most developers do not have. I had it because I was not doing this for a press conference. I was doing it because families in my district were going hungry.

The Lesson

Affordable housing without food access is incomplete. You can build the most beautiful affordable housing development in the city, but if the nearest grocery store is four miles away, you have not solved the problem. You have just relocated it.

The Nash Group thinks about development holistically. Housing, transit, food access, healthcare, education — these are not separate policy silos. They are interconnected systems that determine whether a neighborhood works. The grocery access fight taught me that lesson early, and it has informed every project we have done since.

When we evaluate a development site today, one of the first things we assess is the food environment. What is available within walking distance? What retail anchors already exist? What gaps need to be filled? Because a home is not just four walls and a roof. A home is a place where a family can live a full life. And a full life requires fresh food on the table.

The oasis we fought for in Kansas City's East Side was not a luxury. It was a correction of a decades long injustice. And it took a city councilman, a community, and years of persistent effort to make it happen.

Nash Targets Ground Zero of Blight

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Business Journal, August 18, 2000; Community Leaders Take Stand at 39th and Prospect

In 2000, 39th and Prospect was the intersection that Kansas City wanted to forget. Abandoned buildings. Vacant lots. Drug activity in plain sight. The kind of corner where residents walked faster, where businesses had long since left, where the city's investment had dried up and blown away.

I decided to stand there until somebody did something about it.

In July 2000, I conducted a six-day vigil at 39th and Prospect. Not from an office. Not through a press release. I was physically present at the intersection, every day, making it impossible for the city, the media, and the public to look away from what had been allowed to happen there.

Why I Stood There

There is a difference between knowing about blight and seeing it. Every council member in Kansas City knew that 39th and Prospect was deteriorating. The data was in the reports. The complaints were in the files. But data does not create urgency. Standing at an intersection surrounded by decay while cars drive past creates urgency.

I stood there because I believed that my physical presence at the worst intersection in my district would force a conversation that memos and committee hearings had failed to produce. I was right.

The Kansas City Star covered the vigil. Television cameras showed up. Community members who had been asking for help for years suddenly had a platform. And city officials who had been comfortable ignoring the problem were now being asked on camera what they planned to do about it.

The dynamic changed immediately. When a sitting council member is standing at an intersection surrounded by abandoned buildings, the city cannot pretend the problem does not exist. The media coverage made the conditions at 39th and Prospect a citywide story, not just a neighborhood complaint. And once it became a citywide story, the political calculus shifted. Doing nothing was no longer an option.

What Happened Next

The vigil catalyzed a comprehensive development plan for the 39th and Prospect corridor. The city committed resources to demolishing the abandoned buildings that were magnets for criminal activity. The Kansas City Star documented the demolitions as they happened: "Building to be demolished on 39th and Prospect." "Last targeted building to be razed at 39th and Prospect." Each headline was evidence that the vigil had produced real action.

We secured funding for new investment in the corridor, including the eventual groundbreaking for a grocery anchored development that would take years to realize but began with this moment. The vigil did not just produce demolitions. It produced a plan. And the plan produced investment that transformed the corridor over the following decade.

The vigil also demonstrated something to the community: their elected representative was willing to put himself in the same conditions they endured daily. I was not asking residents to be patient while I worked the system from an office. I was standing on their corner, in their neighborhood, refusing to leave until somebody answered for what had been allowed to happen there.

That mattered. Trust between government and community is earned through action, not words. The residents of the 39th and Prospect corridor had been asking for help for years. They had attended meetings. They had called their council office. They had filled out complaint forms. Nothing changed. My vigil showed them that their council member was willing to do more than listen. He was willing to stand where they stood and make the same demand they had been making: fix this.

The Approach

Some people in government believe that change happens through legislation and budget allocation. They are not wrong. But legislation without pressure is paper. Budget allocation without urgency is delayed indefinitely.

The vigil at 39th and Prospect was pressure. It was a public, visible, documented demand for investment in a neighborhood that the city had abandoned. It was uncomfortable for city officials because it forced them to explain why this corner looked the way it did. And it was effective because it translated community frustration into media attention, and media attention into political action.

This approach — direct, physical, present — became a hallmark of my time on the Council. I did not believe in conducting my job from behind a desk. The neighborhoods I represented deserved a councilman who was willing to stand where they stood and see what they saw.

The Legacy

39th and Prospect is not the same intersection it was in 2000. The abandoned buildings are gone. Investment has followed. The corridor is still a work in progress, but the trajectory changed because somebody decided that the status quo was not acceptable and forced a conversation about it.

The press clippings from that week document the moment: "Nash targets ground zero of blight." "Community leaders take stand at 39th and Prospect." "Building to be demolished on 39th and Prospect." "Last targeted building to be razed at 39th and Prospect." These are not just headlines. They are the documentary evidence of what happens when an elected official decides that a community's problems are worth standing in.

That same philosophy drives The Nash Group today. We do not parachute into communities. We show up. We stay. And we do not leave until the work is done.

Progressive Legislation for Inner City Neighborhoods

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Councilman Troy Nash Passes Progressive Legislation to Benefit Inner City Neighborhoods; Councilman Nash Sponsors Urban Legislation; Public Improvements Approved

Legislation is not glamorous. Nobody throws a ribbon cutting for an ordinance. Nobody takes a photo in front of a zoning amendment. But legislation is where the real power lives in urban development. The rules that govern what gets built, where investment flows, and who benefits from public resources are all written in the legislative process.

During my time on the Kansas City Council, I authored and passed progressive legislation specifically designed to benefit inner city neighborhoods. This was not accidental. It was a deliberate strategy to use the legislative tools available to an elected official to redirect resources, create incentives, and remove barriers for communities that had been systematically excluded from the city's growth.

What The Legislation Did

The legislation I sponsored covered multiple areas, all aimed at the same goal: creating the conditions for inner city neighborhoods to attract investment, improve services, and provide better quality of life for residents.

Infrastructure improvements were a major focus. Inner city neighborhoods had been underfunded for decades. Streets were in poor condition. Sidewalks were missing or broken. Lighting was inadequate. Water and sewer systems needed upgrades. The legislation I sponsored directed public improvement dollars to these neighborhoods on a priority basis, recognizing that infrastructure is the foundation on which all other development depends.

Without functioning infrastructure, no private developer will invest. Without decent streets, no retailer will open a store. Without adequate lighting, no resident feels safe walking at night. The infrastructure legislation was not exciting, but it was essential. It was the foundation that made everything else possible.

I also sponsored legislation addressing urban blight. Demolition of dangerous structures, lien reform, code enforcement, and weed abatement might sound like mundane municipal housekeeping. They are not. They are the tools that determine whether a neighborhood stabilizes or continues to decline. When abandoned buildings are torn down, when vacant lots are maintained, when property owners are held accountable for the condition of their buildings, the physical environment improves. And when the physical environment improves, private investment follows.

The lien reform was particularly important. In Kansas City, the city could place liens on properties for unpaid demolition costs, code violations, and other expenses. But the lien process was cumbersome, and the liens were often subordinate to existing mortgages, which meant the city rarely recovered its costs. The reform I sponsored streamlined the process and strengthened the city's ability to hold negligent property owners accountable. That mattered because in the Third District, there were hundreds of properties owned by absentee landlords who allowed their buildings to deteriorate without consequence.

The legislative record includes ordinances supporting housing rehabilitation, directing funding for police equipment and community safety initiatives, and creating the framework for economic development programs in underserved areas. Each piece of legislation was a tool designed to accomplish a specific objective in the broader strategy of neighborhood transformation.

Why Legislation Matters

Development professionals often think of government as an obstacle. They navigate zoning codes, apply for permits, and request incentives. They experience government as a set of requirements to satisfy.

I experienced government as a tool to wield. When the zoning code did not serve the neighborhoods I represented, I worked to change it. When the budget did not fund the improvements my district needed, I fought for different budget priorities. When the incentive structures favored downtown development over neighborhood investment, I challenged those structures.

That perspective — government as a tool for community transformation rather than an obstacle to development — is what distinguishes The Nash Group from firms that only know how to work within existing systems. We know how to change the systems because we have done it.

The Kansas City Star and other outlets documented the legislative achievements over the course of my council tenure. "Councilman Troy Nash Passes Progressive Legislation to Benefit Inner City Neighborhoods." "Councilman Nash Sponsors Urban Legislation." "Public Improvements Approved." These headlines represent specific legislative actions with specific impacts, all documented in the public record.

Legislation is where the rules are written. I wrote some of those rules. That is an advantage that few development firms can claim.

Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at UMKC

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Ingram's Magazine, 2025

The Lewis White Real Estate Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Henry W. Bloch School of Management is where the next generation of real estate professionals learns the fundamentals of the industry. Curriculum development, industry partnerships, student preparation, career placement. It is the pipeline that feeds the Kansas City real estate market with talent, and I am its director.

That appointment was not a retirement plan. It was a strategic decision to put the same knowledge that built The Nash Group into the hands of every student who walks through the door.

Why Academic Leadership Matters

There is a gap in real estate education that most programs do not address. Students learn finance. They learn valuation. They learn market analysis. What they often do not learn is how development actually happens in the real world: the politics, the community dynamics, the regulatory navigation, and the human judgment calls that determine whether a project succeeds or fails.

I have sat in classrooms where the professor teaches LIHTC as a financing mechanism using textbook examples. The students learn the formula, pass the exam, and enter the workforce without ever having seen what a real LIHTC application looks like, how a real community engagement meeting feels, or what happens when a contractor goes over budget on a real project.

I teach differently because I have lived differently. When I stand in front of a class and explain how a LIHTC capital stack works, I am not reciting from a textbook. I am describing deals I have structured. When I teach students about community engagement, I am drawing on decades of direct experience in neighborhoods where engagement meant the difference between a project that got built and one that got blocked. When I teach about government relations, I am sharing what I learned chairing the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee on the Kansas City Council.

The Lewis White Real Estate Center under my direction emphasizes this integration of theory and practice. Students study the academic foundations, but they also engage with real projects, real professionals, and real communities. The goal is to produce graduates who can walk into a development meeting on day one and add value.

The Bloch School Connection

The Henry W. Bloch School of Management is named after the co-founder of H&R Block, a man who built a global company from Kansas City. The school carries a tradition of practical, entrepreneurial business education. The Lewis White Real Estate Center extends that tradition into the real estate sector.

Our students come from diverse backgrounds. Some are pursuing careers in commercial development. Some are headed for investment and asset management. Some want to work in affordable housing or community development. Some are mid-career professionals adding real estate expertise to their existing skill sets through the Executive MBA program, where I also teach.

What they all share is access to a curriculum that connects classroom learning to market reality. Industry speakers. Project site visits. Mentorship from working professionals. And a director who has done the work, not just studied it.

What This Means For The Industry

The real estate industry needs better trained professionals. Not just technically proficient ones, but professionals who understand that development happens in communities and affects real people. The days when a developer could build whatever the numbers justified without considering community impact are over, if they ever existed.

The students we produce at the Lewis White Real Estate Center understand that development is a social activity. Capital allocation is important. Risk management is important. But so is understanding the neighborhood where you are building, listening to the people who live there, and designing projects that serve the community rather than just the investor.

That perspective is embedded in every course, every project, and every interaction at the center. It comes directly from 30 years of experience doing development in communities where getting it right was not optional.

The Through Line

Teaching and developing are not separate activities for me. They are the same activity applied at different scales. When I build housing in a neighborhood, I am investing in that community's future. When I teach a student how development works, I am investing in the industry's future. Both are necessary. Both require patience. And both produce returns that compound over time.

The Lewis White Real Estate Center is not a side project. It is core to the mission of The Nash Group because the problems we work on — affordable housing, community development, equitable transit — will outlast any individual project or career. Training the next generation to continue this work is as important as doing the work ourselves.

Ingram's covered my appointment as director in 2025 because it recognized what the appointment signified: a practitioner with three decades of experience was now shaping the curriculum that would produce the next generation of Kansas City's real estate leaders. That is influence that compounds.

The Ville Wellness Campus: Where Housing Meets Health

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Project documentation; St. Louis development records

Here is a fact that most people in real estate do not think about enough: housing instability is a public health crisis. When a family cannot afford a stable place to live, everything else falls apart. Children miss school. Adults miss work. Medical appointments get canceled because the priority is figuring out where to sleep next month. Chronic stress from housing insecurity leads to hypertension, depression, and a cascade of health outcomes that cost the healthcare system billions of dollars a year.

The Ville Wellness Campus was designed around a simple idea: if housing instability causes health problems, then the most effective health intervention is stable, affordable housing. And if you are going to build that housing, why not put a health center right next to it?

The Project

The Ville Wellness Campus integrates 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center in St. Louis, Missouri. It sits in The Ville, a historically significant African American neighborhood on the city's north side.

The Ville is one of those neighborhoods that tells the story of Black America in a single zip code. It was once a thriving center of African American culture, business, and community life in St. Louis. Sumner High School, the first high school for Black students west of the Mississippi, is in The Ville. The neighborhood produced athletes, musicians, educators, and leaders who shaped the city and the nation.

But like so many historically Black neighborhoods, The Ville experienced systematic disinvestment over decades. Population declined. Businesses closed. The housing stock deteriorated. And the health outcomes of residents reflected the neglect: higher rates of chronic disease, lower life expectancy, and limited access to medical care.

The numbers tell a story that should shame any country as wealthy as the United States. Life expectancy in neighborhoods like The Ville can be 15 to 20 years shorter than in affluent communities just a few miles away. Infant mortality rates mirror those of developing nations. Diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease are epidemic. And the primary driver of all of these outcomes is not genetics or personal behavior. It is the environment: housing quality, food access, healthcare availability, and the chronic stress of economic insecurity.

The Approach

The Ville Wellness Campus addresses this reality head on. Instead of building housing in one location and hoping residents can find a doctor somewhere in the city, we co-located healthcare and housing on the same campus. Residents walk out their door and into a 45,000 square foot health center that provides primary care, behavioral health services, and preventive care.

This is not a novel concept in theory. Healthcare professionals have been talking about social determinants of health for years. Everyone agrees that housing affects health. But very few people actually build projects that integrate the two. The gap between what the research says and what gets built is enormous. The Ville Wellness Campus closes that gap.

Structuring a project like this is significantly more complex than a standard affordable housing development. You are not just assembling a housing capital stack. You are also designing and financing a health facility. You are coordinating with healthcare providers who have their own operational requirements. You are navigating two sets of regulatory frameworks — housing and healthcare — that do not always speak the same language.

The healthcare providers need specific building specifications: exam rooms of particular sizes, waiting areas with specific configurations, technology infrastructure that supports electronic health records. The housing component needs to meet LIHTC compliance requirements, fair housing standards, and local building codes. Making both work in a single campus requires a development team that understands both sectors and can manage the complexity of simultaneous design, financing, and construction.

We managed that complexity because we understand both sides. We know how housing finance works, and we know why healthcare access matters. The Ville Wellness Campus is what happens when a development team thinks about the whole person, not just the unit count.

The connection to my trip to Cuba years earlier is direct. When I led a delegation to study Cuba's healthcare system, I was struck by their model of community-based primary care — putting a doctor in every neighborhood rather than expecting patients to travel to centralized hospitals. That principle, that proximity to healthcare matters as much as the healthcare itself, is embedded in the Ville Wellness Campus design.

The Impact

One hundred and twenty families in The Ville now have stable, affordable housing with healthcare services steps from their front door. That means a mother with diabetes can see her doctor without taking two buses. It means a child with asthma can get preventive care before ending up in the emergency room. It means an elderly resident managing chronic conditions can maintain their health without choosing between rent and medication.

The economic impact extends beyond the residents. A 45,000 square foot health center creates jobs in a neighborhood that desperately needs them. It brings healthcare professionals into the community daily. It signals to other investors and developers that The Ville is a place worth investing in.

What This Demonstrates

The Ville Wellness Campus demonstrates that The Nash Group thinks about development differently than most firms. We do not build units. We build communities. The difference is that a community requires more than housing. It requires services, employment, healthcare, education, and connectivity.

Most developers would look at The Ville and see a challenging market with limited upside. We looked at The Ville and saw 120 families who deserved better housing and a neighborhood that deserved a health center. Then we figured out how to finance and build both.

That approach — starting with community need and working backward to a financial structure that makes it possible — is what defines our work. The Ville Wellness Campus is the clearest example of that philosophy in action.

The model is now being studied and replicated in other cities. That is the highest compliment a development project can receive: other people look at what you built and decide to build something like it in their own community. We built it first, in a neighborhood that needed it most.

Fighting for the Prospect Corridor

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, multiple years; Killings Spur New Spending for Prospect; City Should Expand Help for Prospect; Councilman Nash Will Explain Prospect Avenue Initiative; Nash Meets on Prospect; Neighborhood Leaders Want City Investment; Council Members Clash Over Prospect Corridor

Prospect Avenue is the spine of Kansas City's East Side. It runs north to south through neighborhoods that built this city and were then abandoned by it. For decades, Prospect was synonymous with disinvestment, crime, and neglect. The corridor that once anchored thriving Black neighborhoods had become a symbol of everything that happens when a city turns its back on the people who need it most.

I spent years fighting to reverse that trajectory. Not from a distance. On the ground, on the record, and often at odds with colleagues who did not share my sense of urgency.

The Crisis

In the early 2000s, the Prospect corridor was in crisis. A series of killings along the avenue drew national attention and forced the city to confront what residents had been saying for years: this corridor was dangerous, underinvested, and the target of systematic neglect.

The Kansas City Star covered the response: the city freed up $164,000 for police work and cleanup in the area where the bodies were found. That number tells you everything you need to know about the city's priorities at the time. A corridor that had been neglected for decades received $164,000 in emergency funding because people were dying there. Not because the city had finally decided to invest in the neighborhood. Because the body count made it impossible to do nothing.

I was not satisfied with emergency funding. I wanted structural investment. I wanted the city to treat Prospect the way it treated the downtown corridor: as a priority deserving sustained public resources, not as a crisis to be managed.

The difference between emergency funding and structural investment is the difference between putting a bandage on a wound and treating the underlying disease. Emergency funding addresses the immediate crisis. Structural investment addresses the conditions that created the crisis. The Prospect corridor did not need $164,000 for cleanup. It needed millions of dollars in infrastructure, housing, commercial development, and public services. It needed to be treated as a priority, not an afterthought.

The Fight

The fight for Prospect investment was not polite. The Kansas City Star documented the clashes between council members over how much to invest and where the money should come from. Some colleagues wanted incremental improvements. I wanted transformation.

I held community forums along Prospect to explain the initiative directly to residents. These were not staged events with pre-selected questions. They were open meetings where residents told me what they saw every day: the vacant lots, the abandoned buildings, the drug activity, the lack of grocery stores, the absence of city services that every other neighborhood took for granted.

I took my case to the media. I introduced legislation to direct resources to the corridor. I fought in committee for every dollar. And I refused to accept the argument that these neighborhoods were beyond saving.

The press coverage from this period tells the story of a council member who would not relent. "Nash meets on Prospect." "Councilman Nash will explain Prospect Avenue initiative at workshop." "Neighborhood leaders want city investment." "City should expand help for Prospect." Every headline represented a step in a campaign to force the city to do right by the people who lived along that corridor.

What Changed

The sustained pressure produced results. The city committed resources to Prospect corridor improvements including infrastructure, safety initiatives, and support for commercial development. The $164,000 emergency appropriation evolved into a broader investment strategy that included public safety, code enforcement, demolition of dangerous structures, and support for new development.

The changes were not as fast or as comprehensive as I wanted. They never are. Government moves slowly, and the inertia of decades of disinvestment does not reverse overnight. But the trajectory changed. Prospect went from a corridor the city wanted to forget to a corridor the city was actively investing in.

The Lasting Impact

The Prospect corridor fight shaped my understanding of what it takes to redirect public investment toward underserved communities. It taught me that data alone is not enough. Reports are not enough. The moral case is not enough. What is required is sustained political pressure from someone who is willing to make the fight personal and public.

That lesson informs everything we do at The Nash Group. When we advocate for investment in communities that have been neglected, we bring the same intensity that characterized the Prospect corridor fight. We show up. We make the case publicly. We do not stop until the investment materializes.

The neighborhoods along Prospect deserved better than what the city was giving them. They deserved a council member who would fight for them in the chambers and on the street. They got one. And the fight we waged together changed what was possible for that corridor.

Move Up at Hilltop Townhomes: Living Where the Problems Are

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, Sunday June 2, 2002; Group Hopes Presence Spurs Change in Complex

In 2002, a grass-roots community organization called Move Up launched one of the most ambitious direct action campaigns Kansas City had ever seen. The initiative was called "30 Ways in 30 Days," and the concept was simple but radical: community leaders and public officials would take turns living and working in a troubled apartment complex to experience firsthand what residents endured daily, and to bring services, attention, and accountability to a place the system had forgotten.

The complex was Hilltop Townhomes, 301 row houses on 34 acres near the intersection of 39th Street and Topping Avenue. About 1,800 people lived there. The neighborhood was plagued by open-market drug dealing, crime, and neglect. Management had stopped maintaining the property. Residents were afraid. They had called the police. They had filed complaints. Nothing changed.

I moved into one of the homes at Hilltop as part of the Move Up initiative.

The Move Up Model

Move Up was organized by Ricardo Lewis, a community activist who understood that the only way to change conditions at Hilltop was to be physically present. Lewis and his team designed a rotation where members of the group would take turns living in a four-bedroom apartment at the complex during the next month. The idea was that sustained presence — not a one-day visit, not a drive-through — would create the pressure needed to force management accountability and bring city services to the community.

The Kansas City Star covered the launch on June 2, 2002. The scene included children, community members, and leaders distributing flyers and setting up operations at the complex. The article noted that Move Up also launched a broader effort to bring services to the troubled East Side apartment complex: anger management sessions, parenting instruction, health services including changing certain habits through diet and exercise, children's recreational activities, and job training.

City officials and local celebrities had been invited to spend a night at Hilltop. Students who completed surveys for Move Up had already been engaged. Nearly 100 residents participated. The Kansas City Star described the initiative as an effort to bring "a range of services — and, they hope, energy and attention — to this community."

My presence at Hilltop was part of this broader community effort. I moved into another home at the complex because I believed that an elected official's participation would amplify the message and increase pressure on management and city agencies to respond.

What I Experienced

Living at Hilltop confirmed everything the residents had been reporting for years. The low-income neighborhood had been plagued by open-market drug dealing and crime. A minister involved in the effort described dealing with "substance abuse users" and "crime in this neighborhood." Residents had tried to get attention to the problems for years without success.

The experience was different from the fire station sleepover in an important way. In the fire stations, I was documenting conditions that affected city employees. At Hilltop, I was documenting conditions that affected families — mothers, children, elderly residents. People who had no choice about where they lived because they could not afford to live anywhere else.

The daily reality was relentless. The criminal activity was visible. The maintenance was nonexistent. And every day, families with children walked through those conditions because this was the only housing they could afford.

Why This Model Mattered

Move Up demonstrated something that most government programs fail to achieve: sustained presence in the communities that need help most. The group did not just visit Hilltop for a photo opportunity. They moved in. They set up operations. They brought services directly to the residents rather than expecting residents to navigate a bureaucracy to find help.

My participation as a sitting council member added a dimension of political accountability. When an elected official lives in a troubled housing complex, the city cannot pretend the problem does not exist. Media coverage increased. City inspectors paid more attention. Management faced scrutiny they had avoided for years.

The Impact on My Work

The experience at Hilltop changed how I approach every development. When The Nash Group builds housing, we do not just meet minimum code requirements. We build housing where people feel safe. Where families can let their children play outside. Where a resident can walk from their car to their front door without fear. That standard comes directly from living in a complex where none of that was true.

The design implications are specific. We think about sight lines — can residents see the entrance from their windows? We think about lighting — are the parking areas, walkways, and common spaces well lit at night? We think about access control — who can enter the building and how? We think about maintenance — because a building that is not maintained sends a signal to criminals that nobody is paying attention.

Most people in the housing industry have never lived in the housing they build. I have. The Move Up initiative at Hilltop Townhomes gave me an education that no classroom could provide, and that experience is embedded in every project we do at The Nash Group.

Ricardo Lewis and the Move Up team understood something fundamental: you cannot change a community from the outside. You have to be in it. That principle — showing up, being present, and using whatever platform you have to create change — is what drives this firm today.

Sleeping in Fire Stations: The $276 Million Bond Story

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, 2001; Troy Nash Sleeps Over in Fire Stations; Decrepit Fire Stations Draw Council's Attention; Police Fire Cost Estimates Rise; KC Sets Vote on Fire, Rail Sales Taxes

In 2001, Kansas City's fire stations were falling apart. Not figuratively. Literally. Roofs leaked. Equipment failed. The living quarters where firefighters slept between calls were in conditions that no employer in the private sector would tolerate. And the city was doing nothing about it.

I decided the fastest way to get something done was to show people what the firefighters were living with. Not by giving a speech. Not by writing a report. By sleeping there myself.

Over the course of several weeks, I slept in six of Kansas City's worst fire stations. I ate where the firefighters ate. I slept where they slept. I saw the peeling walls, the broken equipment, the conditions that endangered the very people the city depended on to save lives.

Why I Did This

I could have written a memo. I could have requested a budget line item. I could have given a speech on the Council floor with photos and spreadsheets. Any of those things might have moved the needle eventually. But eventually was not good enough for firefighters working in buildings that should have been condemned.

The fire station issue had been lingering in city government for years. Everyone knew the stations were deteriorating. Every budget cycle, somebody would propose funding for station improvements, and every budget cycle, the proposal would get deferred in favor of more visible priorities. Downtown development. Road construction. Parks projects. The fire stations were always important but never urgent.

Sleeping in the stations made them urgent.

Sleeping in the stations was about credibility. When you stand in front of voters and ask them to approve a major bond issue, they need to believe you. They need to know that you are not exaggerating. They need to trust that the need is real.

I earned that credibility by sleeping in the buildings. Every reporter who covered the story asked the same question: what did you see? And I could answer because I had been there. I had smelled the mold. I had felt the cold from broken heating systems. I had lain awake in a bunk in a building that no reasonable person would consider safe.

The Kansas City Star covered every station I visited. The headlines wrote themselves: "Nash Sleeps Over." "Decrepit Fire Stations Draw Council's Attention." "Troy Nash Supports More Funding for Fire Stations." The coverage created a public conversation that had not existed before, because now the conditions were not abstract. They were personal. A city councilman had slept in these buildings, and he was telling the public exactly what he found.

The firefighters themselves were grateful for the attention. They had been working in these conditions for years, filing maintenance requests that went unanswered, watching their stations deteriorate while the city invested in other priorities. Having a council member sleep in their stations and then go public with what he found gave them an advocate they had not had before.

The Result

The voters approved a $276 million fire department sales tax. Let me repeat that number: $276 million. That sales tax funded the renovation and replacement of fire stations across Kansas City. It was one of the largest fire department investments in the city's history.

That outcome was not guaranteed. Bond issues require voter approval, and voters are skeptical of government spending. They had to be convinced that the need was real, that the money would be spent wisely, and that the investment was worth it.

The fire station sleepover convinced them. It cut through the political noise and replaced it with something voters could understand: your firefighters are sleeping in buildings that are falling apart, and a councilman just proved it by sleeping there himself.

The $276 million did not just fix fire stations. It transformed the city's fire department infrastructure. New stations were built. Existing stations were renovated. Equipment was upgraded. And the firefighters who risked their lives to protect the public finally had facilities worthy of their service.

What This Case Study Means

This is not just a story about fire stations. It is a story about what happens when an elected official decides that the people he serves deserve more than words.

The conventional approach to public policy is incremental. You commission a study. You write a report. You introduce legislation. You negotiate in committee. You compromise. You accept what you can get. And years later, the fire stations are still falling apart because the process never created enough urgency to get something done.

I rejected that approach. The urgency was created by my presence in those buildings. The $276 million sales tax was the result.

For prospective clients and partners evaluating The Nash Group, this story answers a question you might not ask directly but are definitely thinking: will this team fight for my project? The answer is yes. I slept in fire stations to get those buildings fixed. I stood on street corners to get neighborhoods invested in. That level of commitment does not disappear when you move from government to private practice. It is who I am.

The $276 million speaks for itself. But the story behind it — a councilman in a bunk in a broken fire station, refusing to leave until the city did right by its firefighters — that is the story that tells you what kind of people you are working with.

Appointed to the Missouri Housing Development Commission

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Gov Nixon Creates New Commission, 2009; Nixon Appoints Troy Nash to Housing Commission

In 2009, Governor Jay Nixon appointed me to the Missouri Housing Development Commission. If you work in affordable housing in Missouri, you know what MHDC is. If you do not, here is the short version: MHDC is the state body that oversees housing policy and allocates Low Income Housing Tax Credits across Missouri. It is the single most powerful institution in the state's affordable housing ecosystem.

Every developer pursuing LIHTC financing in Missouri must apply to MHDC. Every application is scored against the state's Qualified Allocation Plan. Every award is a decision that determines which projects get built and which neighborhoods receive investment. The commissioners who sit on that body shape the state's housing landscape for years to come.

I was one of those commissioners.

Why This Appointment Mattered

Most affordable housing developers interact with their state housing finance agency as applicants. They submit applications, they wait for scoring, they celebrate if they win and regroup if they lose. They see the process from one side.

I saw it from the inside. As a commissioner, I reviewed applications. I evaluated scoring. I participated in discussions about which projects deserved limited state resources and which did not. I understood how the QAP criteria translated into actual funding decisions, because I was making those decisions.

That perspective is exceptionally rare in the private sector. Most development consultants have never sat in the room where allocation decisions are made. They have never heard the discussions about why one project scored higher than another. They have never seen the trade-offs that commissioners make when the number of deserving projects exceeds the available credits.

I have seen all of that. And that knowledge directly informs every tax credit application The Nash Group prepares.

What The Commission Taught Me

Serving on MHDC taught me several things that directly inform our work today.

First, the QAP is not a formula. It is a set of priorities that reflect the state's housing strategy. Understanding those priorities is not about reading the document. It is about understanding the policy goals behind each criterion. Why does the QAP weight community revitalization? Because the state wants to direct investment to neighborhoods that need it most. Why does it score transit access? Because the state recognizes that housing without transportation is incomplete. Why does it prioritize certain populations? Because the state has identified specific unmet needs.

When you understand the why behind the criteria, you can structure projects that genuinely align with the state's priorities, not just technically satisfy the scoring rubric. The difference between a project that checks boxes and a project that embodies the state's housing strategy is the difference between an adequate application and a winning one.

Second, the supply of tax credits is permanently insufficient. There is always more need than there are credits to award. That means every application must be excellent, not just adequate. The difference between a funded project and an unfunded project is often a matter of a few points on a scoring rubric. Those points come from attention to detail in every section of the application: the market study, the community engagement evidence, the financial projections, the development team qualifications, and the narrative that ties it all together.

Third, the commissioners care about execution. An award is not just a commitment of tax credits. It is a commitment of the state's credibility. When a project fails after receiving an allocation, it reflects on the commission. The commissioners want to award credits to teams that will actually deliver. Track record matters. Development experience matters. Financial capacity matters. A first-time developer with a good project will lose to an experienced developer with a comparable project every time, because the commission has been burned by inexperienced teams who could not execute.

How This Shows Up In Our Work

When we prepare LIHTC applications for clients or for our own projects, we bring a commissioner's perspective to every section. We do not just fill in the blanks. We build applications that anticipate the questions commissioners will ask and answer them preemptively.

We know that a strong application tells a story. Not a marketing story, but a development story: here is the need, here is the site, here is the team, here is the capital stack, here is the community support, and here is why this project deserves the state's limited resources more than the other applications on the table.

We know that community engagement letters are not just evidence of support. They are evidence that the development team has actually engaged the community and incorporated their input into the project design. Commissioners can tell the difference between form letters and genuine engagement. They have seen thousands of applications, and they can spot a developer who mailed out form letters and collected signatures without ever holding a community meeting.

We know that financial projections must be conservative and realistic. Commissioners have seen enough applications to spot aggressive assumptions. A pro forma that assumes unrealistic rent growth or minimal vacancy is not just a bad financial model. It is a signal that the development team does not understand the market or is trying to make a marginal deal look viable.

The Bottom Line

Governor Nixon appointed me to MHDC because of my experience in housing policy, community development, and public service. I served on the commission because I understood that tax credit allocation is not just a financial process. It is a policy process that determines which communities receive investment.

That experience is rare. Most people in this industry have never sat on the other side of the table. I have. And that perspective makes every application we submit, every project we structure, and every client we advise better prepared for the reality of how these decisions are made.

Chair of Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star, 2003; Nash Appointed Chair of Plans, Zoning; New Planning, Zoning Chair Ready for Larger Role on New Council; Mayor Barnes Announces Committee Assignments

When you chair the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee on a major city council, every significant development project in the city crosses your desk. Every zoning change. Every economic incentive package. Every TIF district. Every tax abatement. Every developer with a proposal. Every community group with an objection. Every dollar of public investment tied to private development.

I chaired that committee for the Kansas City Council. It was the most influential committee for shaping the city's physical and economic trajectory, and it gave me an education in urban development that no classroom could match.

What The Chair Does

The chair controls the agenda. Which projects get heard. Which get deferred. Which move forward to the full council. That power is both a tool and a responsibility, because the decisions made in that committee room determine which neighborhoods get investment and which continue to wait.

Every major development that came before the committee during my tenure had to answer a fundamental question: does this project benefit the community, or just the developer? I asked that question of every proposal, and I was not always popular for it.

Developers who came before my committee expecting a rubber stamp did not get one. They got questions. Who benefits from this project? How many jobs will it create? Are those jobs accessible to residents of the surrounding neighborhood? What happens to the tenants who are currently on this site? Will the public incentives being requested actually produce outcomes that justify the public cost?

These are not hostile questions. They are the questions that any responsible steward of public resources should ask. But in a city where the development community was accustomed to friendly, expedient committee hearings, my approach was a disruption. I was not anti-development. I was pro-accountability. Every public dollar invested in a private project should produce a measurable public return. If a developer cannot demonstrate that return, the project should not receive public incentives.

What I Learned

Chairing Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development taught me how development actually works in an American city. Not the textbook version. The real version.

I learned that TIF districts can be powerful tools for neighborhood investment when structured correctly, and engines of displacement when structured poorly. A well-structured TIF captures the increment of property tax revenue generated by new development and reinvests it in the district. A poorly structured TIF diverts property tax revenue from schools and public services to subsidize projects that would have been built anyway.

I learned that tax abatements create value for developers but can erode the tax base that funds schools and public services. The question is not whether to use abatements but whether the project would happen without them and whether the community benefit justifies the tax revenue foregone.

I learned that community engagement is not a checkbox on an application. It is a negotiation between people with competing interests, and the government's job is to ensure that the people with the least power get a seat at the table.

I learned that the development industry is full of capable professionals who build excellent projects, and it is also full of operators who extract public subsidy without delivering public value. Telling the difference requires asking hard questions and insisting on honest answers.

How This Informs Our Work Today

When The Nash Group advises clients on entitlement processes, zoning approvals, or public incentive applications, we bring something that most advisory firms do not: the perspective of the person who sat in the chair.

I know how committees evaluate projects because I led the evaluations. I know what questions will be asked because I asked them. I know what community concerns will arise because I heard them from the community directly. I know what makes a project approvable because I voted on hundreds of them.

That experience is not available in a textbook or a training program. It is available from someone who did the job. For clients navigating complex entitlement processes in any city, the value of that perspective is practical and immediate. We know what the committee is looking for. We know how to structure a project that answers the tough questions before they are asked. We know how to engage the community in a way that builds support rather than opposition.

Government experience is rare among private sector developers and consultants. Most professionals interact with city hall as applicants. They see the system from one side: they submit, they wait, they hope. I have seen it from both sides. That dual perspective means I understand not just what clients need from government but what government needs from clients. And when those two sets of needs are aligned from the start, projects move faster, approvals come easier, and outcomes are better for everyone.

Case Study: Promise Place - 85 Families, One Promise

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

85 Families, One Promise

Project Snapshot

The Promise

We named it Promise Place because that is what it is. A promise to 85 Kansas City families that quality, dignified housing is possible at an income level where the market has abandoned them. A promise that 30 to 60 percent of Area Median Income does not mean 30 to 60 percent of the dignity that everyone else gets. A promise that the zip code you live in does not determine the quality of life you deserve.

At The Nash Group, we develop 100% affordable housing. Every unit we build serves families who cannot find quality housing at market rate. Promise Place is the latest expression of that commitment, and it represents something specific about how we approach development: the conviction that city resources and federal credits, deployed together with discipline and creativity, can deliver housing that families are proud to call home.

The Financing Structure

Promise Place is a 4% federal LIHTC deal backed by significant city resources. That structure is worth examining because it represents an increasingly important model for affordable housing development.

The 4% credit, paired with tax exempt bonds, provides the foundation of investor equity. But at approximately 30% of eligible basis, the 4% credit generates less equity than the 9% credit. That gap has to be filled. For Promise Place, the city of Kansas City committed significant resources to the project, creating the financial foundation that makes an 85 unit deal viable at the 4% level without the state match.

This is not a financing structure that happens by default. It requires a municipality that is genuinely committed to affordable housing and willing to put resources behind that commitment. It requires a developer who understands how to assemble a capital stack from multiple sources and who has the relationships to bring those sources to the table. And it requires the patience and persistence to navigate a process that is more complex than a straightforward 9% competitive application.

As Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017, I saw every kind of financing structure. I learned that the deals that work are the ones where the developer has done the hard work of building partnerships before the application is submitted. Promise Place is built on that principle.

Why City Resources Matter

When a city invests in an affordable housing project, it does more than fill a financing gap. It sends a signal. It tells investors that the project has political support. It tells the community that the city is committed to the neighborhood. It tells other financing partners that the project is real, that it has momentum, and that the public sector is invested in its success.

City resources can take many forms: land contributions, direct financial commitments, tax increment financing, HOME funds, CDBG allocations, or local housing trust fund dollars. The specific form matters less than the commitment. What matters is that the city has decided that this project is a priority and is willing to back that decision with resources.

Promise Place exists because Kansas City made that decision. Other cities that are serious about affordable housing should study this model, because the need for 4% deals with municipal support is only going to grow as the demand for affordable housing continues to outpace the supply of competitive 9% credits.

85 Families at 30 to 60 Percent AMI

The families who will live at Promise Place earn between 30 and 60 percent of Area Median Income. At those income levels, the private market does not build housing. The rents that a private developer needs to charge to make a market rate deal work are rents that these families simply cannot afford. Without LIHTC and without city resources, these families have limited options: overcrowded apartments, substandard housing, or cost burden that consumes more than half of their income and leaves nothing for food, health care, transportation, or education.

That is the reality that Promise Place addresses. Eighty five units of quality housing at rents that families at 30 to 60 percent AMI can actually afford. Not housing that is affordable in name only, but housing that gives families room to breathe, room to save, and room to build the stability that everything else depends on.

The Development Philosophy

Promise Place reflects the development philosophy that guides every Nash Group project. We believe that affordable housing is an essential social determinant of health. We believe that where you live shapes who you become. We believe that the families we serve deserve the same quality of design, construction, and community planning that market rate residents expect.

I grew up in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City. My mother raised six children by herself, on welfare, without a father in the home. We bounced between public housing projects including Holy Temple Homes and Friendship Village Apartments. I know what it feels like to live in housing that was built to a lower standard because the residents were deemed less worthy of quality. Promise Place is built on the opposite premise: that every family, regardless of income, deserves a home they can be proud of.

The Portfolio Context

Promise Place is part of a portfolio that includes The Mabion, a $19.3 million development bringing 57 homes to Beacon Hill in Kansas City, and the Ville Wellness Campus, a $75 million project integrating 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center in North St. Louis. Together, The Nash Group is building 254 or more affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis with over $100 million in total development costs.

Each project in the portfolio addresses a different market, a different financing structure, and a different community need. But they share a common thread: 100% affordable housing, serving families at 30 to 60 percent AMI, developed by a team that brings lived experience, public sector knowledge, and private sector discipline to every deal.

The Promise

The name says it all. Promise Place is a promise. A promise that 85 families in Kansas City will have quality housing they can afford. A promise that the city's investment in affordable housing will produce tangible, measurable results. A promise that the gap between what the federal credit provides and what families need can be bridged when municipalities and developers work together with shared purpose.

Where you start out in life has nothing to do with where you end up. That is what I believe. That is what I teach my students at UMKC. That is what I tell my daughter Arielle, who serves as President and Co-Founder of The Nash Group. And that is what Promise Place is designed to prove, one family at a time.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. The Nash Group develops 100% affordable housing serving families at 30-60% of Area Median Income across Kansas City and St. Louis.

Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Savoy Magazine, 2020 and 2022

In 2020 and again in 2022, Savoy Magazine named me among the Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America. Both times, I was placed alongside C-suite leaders from Fortune 500 companies, national nonprofit organizations, and major institutional investment firms.

I am telling you about this not to list accolades. I am telling you because third-party national recognition is the most credible form of validation that exists in business. When you say you are good, that is marketing. When a national publication independently identifies you as one of the most influential leaders in your field, that is evidence.

What Savoy Recognition Means

Savoy Magazine covers African American business leadership at the highest levels. Their annual list of Most Influential Black Executives is the publication's marquee feature, and it is compiled through independent editorial research, not through submissions or applications. You do not campaign for this list. The editors identify who belongs on it based on impact, leadership scope, and demonstrated influence.

Being named to this list once indicates that you have reached a level of national visibility and impact that extends beyond your local market. Being named twice in three years indicates that the impact is sustained and growing. The editors did not include me in 2020 as a novelty. They included me again in 2022 because the work had expanded, deepened, and produced measurable results.

The other names on the Savoy list include leaders from companies with billions in revenue. Chief executives of national organizations. Senior partners at global firms. Being named alongside them signals that The Nash Group's impact, while concentrated in affordable housing and community development, registers at a national scale.

Why It Matters For Clients and Partners

I understand that prospective clients and partners evaluate firms based on capability, track record, and credibility. National recognition from Savoy addresses the credibility question directly. It says that the leadership of this firm operates at a national level and has been independently validated by people whose job is to identify the most impactful leaders in the country.

This is not the same as an industry award that you apply for or a local honor that reflects geographic prominence. Savoy's list covers all of corporate America. The recognition spans every industry, every geography, and every type of organization. Making the list requires impact that is visible at the national level.

The Work Behind The Recognition

National recognition does not come from a single project or a single year of effort. It comes from decades of sustained impact across multiple domains.

The work that Savoy recognized includes: affordable housing developments that have delivered hundreds of units across multiple cities. Policy leadership that shaped how Missouri allocates housing resources. Academic leadership at a major university. Board service at financial institutions and healthcare organizations. Community activism that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in public investment. And a personal narrative that resonates with the millions of Americans who understand what it means to build something from nothing.

All of that work is documented. It is in the press clippings. It is in the project records. It is in the board resolutions and the legislative history. The recognition from Savoy is the independent confirmation that the documentation tells a real story.

The Standard We Set

Being recognized at this level creates an obligation. It means that everything we do going forward must meet the standard that the recognition implies. Every project must be excellent. Every client engagement must be thorough. Every public statement must be substantive. Because when you have been identified as nationally influential, people are watching.

We welcome that scrutiny. It keeps us honest and keeps us sharp. The Nash Group does not rest on recognition. We use it as fuel to do better work, serve more communities, and demonstrate that the highest levels of professional achievement and genuine community commitment are not mutually exclusive.

They never were.

$300,000 for Inner City Youth

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Kansas City Star; Nash, McFadden-Weaver Announce $300,000 for Inner City Youth Project

When you represent a district where too many young people have nothing to do after school and nowhere to go, you either accept that reality or you change it. I changed it.

Working with Councilwoman Saundra McFadden-Weaver, I announced $300,000 in PIAC (Public Improvements Advisory Committee) funds to assist in the funding of the Champions Sports Complex for inner city youth in the Third District. This was not a symbolic resolution or a study. This was real money directed at a multi-use recreational complex at Woodland Elementary School, replacing a vacant lot at 9th and Woodland with a concrete play area and organized sports and character building programs for children ages 7 to 14. The concept evolved from a proposal by the Twelfth Street Heritage Development Corporation.

The Context

The Third District had youth unemployment rates that would have been a scandal in any other part of the city. Young people between 16 and 24 had limited access to job training, mentorship, recreation, and the basic support systems that keep teenagers off the street and on a path toward productive adulthood.

The conventional city response to youth issues was fragmented. Different departments ran different programs with different eligibility requirements and different funding cycles. Nobody was coordinating. Nobody was measuring outcomes. And the young people who needed help the most were falling through the gaps.

In addition to the city's $300,000 PIAC contribution, the project was awarded a $100,000 grant by the NFL Grassroots Program, a partnership of the NFL Youth Football Fund and the national office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Total start-up costs for the complex were approximately $500,000, with construction and program costs projected at $1.5 million through a public-private partnership.

Why I Fought For This

I fought for this because I remembered what it was like to be a young person without resources. I grew up in public housing. I know what happens to young people who have talent but no access. Some of them find their way out through education, athletics, or sheer determination. Most do not. Not because they lack ability, but because nobody invested in them at the moment when investment mattered most.

Youth programs are easy to cut and hard to fund because young people do not vote and do not lobby. Securing $300,000 required political will, strategic advocacy, and a willingness to prioritize a population that most politicians acknowledge in speeches but ignore in budgets.

Every project The Nash Group develops today includes a consideration of youth impact. When we build affordable housing, we think about the children who will live there. Are there schools nearby? Are there after school programs? Are there safe outdoor spaces? These questions come from the same impulse that drove the $300,000 youth investment.

18th and Vine Streetcar Feasibility Study

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Current project with Parsons, 2025-2026

The 18th and Vine corridor in Kansas City is one of the most culturally significant African American neighborhoods in the United States. This is where jazz was born. Where Count Basie and Charlie Parker played. Where the Negro Leagues Museum preserves the history of Black baseball in America. Where an entire cultural ecosystem thrived despite segregation, discrimination, and every institutional barrier America could construct.

Today, the corridor sits at a crossroads. Kansas City is considering extending its streetcar system, and the 18th and Vine district is on the map. The question is not whether transit will transform the corridor. Transit always transforms corridors. The question is who that transformation will serve.

The Nash Group is conducting a corridor assessment for transit oriented development along 18th and Vine as part of a feasibility study with Parsons, a global engineering and infrastructure firm. Our job is to ensure that the answer to that question includes the people who are already there.

Why This Study Matters

Streetcar extensions are not neutral infrastructure investments. They are catalysts that reshape real estate markets, shift property values, and redirect capital flows. In cities across America, streetcar and light rail investments have triggered development booms that displaced existing residents and replaced neighborhood businesses with chains.

The 18th and Vine corridor cannot afford that outcome. The cultural assets that make this neighborhood significant are not replaceable. You cannot rebuild the jazz legacy. You cannot relocate the cultural institutions that anchor the community. If streetcar extension triggers gentrification and displacement, the neighborhood loses something that no amount of new construction can replace.

Kansas City's existing streetcar line, which runs through downtown, has already demonstrated the pattern. Property values along the line increased significantly after the streetcar opened. Development activity concentrated along the route. The economic benefits were real, but they flowed primarily to property owners and new residents, not to the existing community.

Our feasibility study is designed to answer the hard questions that most transit studies avoid. What development should occur along this corridor? Who should benefit from it? How do you capture the economic value of transit investment without displacing the community that gives the corridor its identity?

Our Approach

The Nash Group's corridor assessment evaluates development potential at every parcel along the proposed streetcar route. We analyze existing land use, zoning, property ownership, and market conditions. We identify sites that are suitable for transit oriented development. And we evaluate each site through the lens of equitable development: what can be built here that serves existing residents, preserves cultural assets, and captures the economic benefit of transit for the community?

Working with Parsons gives us access to the engineering and infrastructure analysis that informs the feasibility of the streetcar extension itself. Our role is to ensure that the development planning keeps pace with the engineering and that both are grounded in the community's priorities.

This is not a theoretical exercise. The feasibility study will inform real decisions about whether and how to extend the streetcar. Those decisions will shape the 18th and Vine corridor for decades. Getting the development framework right is not optional.

The Equity Imperative

I have spent my entire career arguing that transit investment should serve existing communities, not displace them. Promise Place, our 85 unit affordable housing development, demonstrated that equitable transit oriented development is possible. The 18th and Vine study extends that commitment to a corridor with even higher stakes.

The cultural significance of 18th and Vine creates both an opportunity and an obligation. The opportunity is to use transit investment as a catalyst for reinvestment in a neighborhood that has experienced decades of decline. The obligation is to ensure that reinvestment does not erase the very cultural identity that makes the neighborhood worth investing in.

Balancing those demands requires a development framework that is intentional about preserving affordability, protecting cultural institutions, and creating economic opportunities for existing residents. That framework is what our corridor assessment is designed to produce.

What This Demonstrates

The 18th and Vine study demonstrates that The Nash Group operates at the intersection of urban planning, real estate development, and social equity. We are not just builders. We are planners who think about what communities need and how development can deliver it without doing harm.

Working alongside Parsons, one of the largest engineering firms in the world, demonstrates our ability to collaborate with global partners on complex infrastructure studies. The Nash Group brings local knowledge, community relationships, and development expertise that complements Parsons' engineering capabilities.

This project is active and ongoing. When the study is complete, its recommendations will inform one of the most consequential development decisions in Kansas City's recent history. We intend to get it right.

Promise Place: 85 Families, One Promise

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Press Coverage: Mass Transit Magazine, 2023

Transit oriented development has a credibility problem. In most American cities, when a new transit line goes in, what follows is not opportunity for existing residents. What follows is displacement. Property values rise. Rents rise. The people who were there first — the people the transit was supposed to serve — get pushed out. I have watched this happen in cities across the country, and I have spent my career making sure it does not happen in the communities where I work.

Promise Place is our answer. Eighty five units of affordable housing, approved by the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, designed from the ground up as transit oriented development that actually serves the people who need transit most.

The Problem With Conventional TOD

The standard model for transit oriented development goes like this: a city invests public money in a rail line or bus rapid transit corridor. Private developers follow the transit investment with market rate housing, retail, and office space. Property values increase. Tax revenue increases. Politicians celebrate. And the low income residents who lived along that corridor before the transit arrived? They are priced out. They move further from the transit they were supposed to benefit from.

This model is economically rational and morally bankrupt. Public transit funded by public dollars should create public benefit, not private profit at the expense of the people who need the most help.

I have studied this pattern in cities across the United States and internationally. In Portland, the MAX light rail system triggered property value increases that displaced low income communities along its corridors. In Atlanta, the BeltLine project has become a cautionary tale of transit investment that accelerated gentrification. In San Francisco, BART expansion reshaped entire neighborhoods in ways that priced out the communities it was designed to serve.

The common thread in every one of these examples is the same: transit investment was treated as a catalyst for market rate development rather than as infrastructure for the existing community. The economic logic is clear. When you improve transportation access, land values increase. When land values increase, developers build to the highest value use. And the highest value use is never affordable housing.

Promise Place was structured to break that pattern. By integrating affordable housing directly into a transit corridor, we ensured that the families who benefit most from transit access — people who depend on public transportation to get to work, to school, to medical appointments — can actually live where the transit is.

The Name

I am deliberate about naming our projects. Promise Place is not a marketing exercise. It is a commitment. The promise is this: development along this transit corridor will serve existing residents. It will not displace them. It will not price them out. It will give them better housing with better access in the neighborhood they already call home.

That promise matters because too many communities have heard promises before. They have been told that new investment would benefit them. They have been told that development would bring jobs and services. And then they watched as the investment displaced them and the jobs went to newcomers who could afford the higher rents.

Eighty five families depend on our promise. We intend to keep it.

The Structure

Promise Place required navigating multiple layers of public approval and financing. The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority had to approve the project's integration with the transit corridor. The city had to provide land use approvals and public incentives. Tax credit investors had to underwrite the deal. And the community had to believe that this time, development would work for them instead of against them.

That last part is the hardest. When a neighborhood has been promised investment for decades and received neglect instead, trust is not the default setting. You earn trust by showing up, by listening, and by delivering what you said you would deliver. We did all three.

The community engagement process for Promise Place was extensive. We held multiple meetings with neighborhood residents. We listened to their concerns about displacement, about construction impacts, about the kinds of services they wanted to see. We incorporated their input into the project design. And we made commitments about affordability that are legally binding, not just aspirational.

The financing structure reflected the complexity of the project. Affordable housing along a transit corridor requires a capital stack that supports below-market rents while also meeting the development standards that a transit-adjacent site demands. The project had to look and feel like quality development — because it is — while maintaining rent levels that working families can actually afford.

Why This Project Matters

Promise Place matters because it proves that equitable transit oriented development is not a theory. It is a building with 85 families living in it. Real people with real leases paying affordable rents in a location that gives them direct access to public transit.

For any city considering transit expansion, Promise Place answers the question that community advocates always ask: who is this transit for? If the answer is only for the new residents and new businesses that follow the transit investment, then you are building gentrification infrastructure. If the answer includes the people who are already there, then you need projects like Promise Place to make that answer real.

The affordable housing industry talks about equitable TOD at conferences. We built it.

Every project we develop at The Nash Group connects to a simple idea: housing is infrastructure. It is as essential to a neighborhood's function as roads, water, and electricity. When you remove affordable housing from a transit corridor, you do not just displace families. You break the infrastructure that makes the whole corridor work.

Promise Place is infrastructure. Eighty five families who can get to work, get to school, and get to services without a car, living in quality housing they can actually afford. That is what transit oriented development is supposed to look like. And that is what we built.

Case Study: The Ville Wellness Campus - Where Housing Meets Health

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:00:00 GMT

Where Housing Meets Health

Project Snapshot

The Premise

Affordable housing is an essential social determinant of health. That is not a slogan. It is the operating principle behind everything we build at The Nash Group, and the Ville Wellness Campus is the fullest expression of that principle.

The idea is straightforward: if where you live shapes who you become, then the place where you live should also be the place where you can access the care you need to stay healthy. Housing and health care should not exist on separate maps. They should share the same address.

The Ville Neighborhood

The Ville is a historically significant neighborhood in North St. Louis. Like many urban neighborhoods across the country, it has experienced decades of disinvestment. The residents of The Ville deserve better than what disinvestment has delivered. They deserve quality housing. They deserve access to health care. They deserve a community that is designed around their well being, not around the convenience of systems that have historically overlooked them.

That is what the Ville Wellness Campus is designed to provide.

The Partnership

No project of this scale happens alone. The Ville Wellness Campus is a partnership between The Nash Group and CareSTL Health, led by CEO Angela Clabon. It also includes Vecino Group, the City of St. Louis, the Missouri Foundation for Health, and Washington University. Each partner brings a different capability to the project, and the result is something none of us could have built independently.

CareSTL Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center. Their mission is to provide comprehensive health care to underserved communities. By co-locating their health center with 120 affordable housing units, we created a model where residents can access primary care, behavioral health services, physical therapy, pharmacy services, and community programming without leaving their neighborhood.

The Numbers

The Ville Wellness Campus represents a $75 million total investment. It includes 120 affordable housing units in the Alumnus Gardens I and II developments, a 45,000 square foot health center, and community facilities. The project is creating 53 jobs. It is under construction and completing in 2026.

Those numbers tell one story. The story behind the numbers is more important. One hundred twenty families will have stable, affordable housing. Those same families will have a comprehensive health center in their community. Behavioral health, physical therapy, a pharmacy, and a community center will be within walking distance of their front door. The project addresses the social determinants of health not in theory, but in concrete, steel, and operating agreements.

The Brown University Recognition

In 2025, Brown University School of Public Health awarded me the Public Health Impact Award for advancing public health by integrating affordable housing and health care through the Ville Wellness Campus. The award recognized that the project includes 120 affordable housing units and a comprehensive health clinic, that it addresses social determinants of health, and that it promotes holistic, community centered care. It also recognized that the project has improved health outcomes, influenced policy, and become a model for reducing health inequities in underserved neighborhoods.

I earned my Master of Public Health from Brown. The recognition from my alma mater carries particular meaning because it validates the approach that my MPH studies helped me develop: the conviction that housing and health are inseparable, and that addressing one without the other is an incomplete solution.

Why This Model Matters

The traditional approach to affordable housing treats housing as an end in itself. Build the units. Fill the units. Maintain the units. That approach has produced millions of affordable housing units through LIHTC and other programs, and it has done enormous good. But it leaves something on the table.

Residents in affordable housing are disproportionately likely to face health challenges: chronic conditions, behavioral health needs, limited access to preventive care. If the development does not address those needs, residents cycle between housing instability and health crises. Stable housing reduces emergency room visits. Access to primary care reduces hospitalizations. Behavioral health services reduce the crises that lead to evictions. The Ville Wellness Campus addresses the full cycle.

I learned this firsthand. I grew up in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City. My mother raised six children by herself, on welfare. If your home life is unstable, everything in your life is going to be unstable. That is what I experienced as a child, and it is what my MPH studies at Brown confirmed with data. Housing stability is a health intervention. The Ville Wellness Campus is designed around that fact.

The Campus Components

The campus is designed as an integrated community, not a collection of separate buildings that happen to share a site. The components include:

120 Affordable Housing Units in the Alumnus Gardens I and II developments, serving families who need quality, dignified housing.

Federally Qualified Health Center operated by CareSTL Health, providing comprehensive primary care to the community.

Behavioral Health Services addressing the mental health needs that are inseparable from housing stability.

Physical Therapy providing rehabilitation and wellness services on site.

Pharmacy ensuring that residents have access to medications without traveling across the city.

Community Center creating gathering space for programming, education, and connection.

The Replication Question

People ask whether the Ville Wellness Campus model can be replicated. The answer is yes, but it requires three things that most developments do not have: a health care partner with the mission and capacity to operate a comprehensive clinic, a financing structure that supports both the housing and the health center components, and a development team that understands both affordable housing and public health.

The Nash Group brings that understanding. My eight degrees include a Master of Public Health from Brown, a Juris Doctor, an MBA in Finance, and a Master of Urban Planning from USC. That combination exists specifically because the problems I am trying to solve do not fit inside a single discipline. The Ville Wellness Campus is proof of that principle.

This is not a theoretical model. It is 120 families. It is 45,000 square feet of health care. It is 53 jobs. It is a $75 million investment in a neighborhood that the rest of the world had written off. And it is completing in 2026.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. He received the 2025 Public Health Impact Award from Brown University School of Public Health for his work on the Ville Wellness Campus. He serves as a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management.

Case Study: The Mabion - 57 Homes for Beacon Hill

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:00:00 GMT

57 Homes for Beacon Hill

Project Snapshot

The Name

The Mabion is named in honor of Ray Mabion Sr. and Jr., pillars of Kansas City's community. In affordable housing development, names matter. A building is not a spreadsheet. It is a place where families will live, where children will grow up, where memories will be made. Naming this development after the Mabion family is a statement about what we value: legacy, community, and the people who built the neighborhoods long before the developers arrived.

The Site

The Mabion is rising in the heart of Kansas City, in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Site selection for this project reflected the principles I have applied throughout my career. As Chairman of the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee on the Kansas City City Council from 2003 to 2007, I presided over the largest economic development boom in the city's history, directly impacting over $10 billion in development. I learned what makes a site work: zoning alignment, transit access, proximity to services, community support, and long term neighborhood trajectory. The Beacon Hill site met those criteria.

The Financing

The Mabion is a $19.3 million development structured as a 4% federal LIHTC deal without the state match. That financing decision was deliberate. The 4% credit, paired with tax exempt bonds, allowed us to move on our timeline rather than waiting for a competitive 9% allocation round. Without the state match, we had a larger financing gap to fill, which required assembling a creative capital stack from multiple sources.

As Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017, I reviewed hundreds of LIHTC applications and voted on allocations. That experience gave me an understanding of how deals are evaluated, what makes financing structures work, and where projects fail. The Mabion's financing reflects those lessons: conservative underwriting, realistic cost assumptions, and a capital stack that does not depend on any single source.

The Groundbreaking

In October 2024, we broke ground on The Mabion with Mayor Quinton Lucas and city leaders at the ceremony. That moment represented more than the start of construction. It represented years of community engagement, financing assembly, and the kind of persistent, detail oriented work that affordable housing development demands.

Community support does not happen by accident. It is the result of showing up, listening, and demonstrating that your project will strengthen the neighborhood rather than disrupt it. We invested in those relationships long before the first shovel hit the ground.

The Mission

The Mabion represents The Nash Group's commitment to creating quality affordable housing that strengthens neighborhoods and provides families with stable foundations for success. Every unit is affordable. Every unit serves families who need dignified housing in a community that supports their well being.

At The Nash Group, we believe that affordable housing is an essential social determinant of health. Where you live shapes who you become. If your home life is unstable, everything in your life is going to be unstable. The Mabion is designed to give 57 families the stability they need to build better lives.

Building Community, Not Displacing It

One of the principles that guides every Nash Group development is that we build community, we do not displace it. The Mabion is not a project being imposed on Beacon Hill from the outside. It is a project that honors the neighborhood's history, serves its residents, and strengthens its future.

That principle comes from lived experience. I grew up in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City. I know what it feels like when development happens to a community rather than for it. I know what displacement looks like. And I know that the best affordable housing developments are the ones where the community sees itself in the project, starting with the name on the building.

The Mabion is 57 homes. It is $19.3 million in investment. It is a 4% federal LIHTC deal without the state match. But more than any of those numbers, it is a promise to Beacon Hill: we are building this for you, and it will be here long after the construction fences come down.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. The Nash Group is building 254+ affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis with over $100 million in total development costs.

What My Students Taught Me About Leadership

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:00:00 GMT

I have eight degrees. I have chaired a City Council committee that oversaw $10 billion in development. I have served as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission. I have built affordable housing, structured complex deals, and navigated bureaucracies that would exhaust most people. But some of the most important lessons I have learned about leadership came from inside a classroom, and I was not the one teaching them.

I serve as a professor in the Executive MBA Program at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management and as Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center. My students are working professionals. They are managers, directors, entrepreneurs, and executives who come to the classroom after a full day of making decisions that affect real people and real money. They do not have patience for theory that does not connect to practice. And that has made me a better leader.

They Taught Me to Simplify

When you have spent decades in affordable housing development, you start speaking in acronyms. LIHTC. QAP. AMI. MHDC. TIF. CDBG. HOME. Every one of those terms represents a complex system, and after enough years, you forget that most people have no idea what you are talking about.

My Executive MBA students reminded me that complexity is not a sign of expertise. Clarity is. The first time I walked through a LIHTC deal structure in class and saw 30 faces that told me I had lost the room, I realized that if I could not explain the most important affordable housing program in American history to a group of smart, motivated professionals, the problem was mine, not theirs.

That lesson changed how I communicate with lenders, investors, city officials, and community stakeholders. If you cannot explain your deal on one page, you do not understand it well enough. My students taught me that.

They Taught Me to Listen Before Leading

Executive MBA students are not traditional students. They have careers. They have expertise. They have opinions formed by years of professional experience. When I stand in front of that room, I am not the only person with something to teach.

Early in my teaching career, I made the mistake every new professor makes: I talked too much. I had stories from the City Council, from MHDC, from the development world, and I wanted to share all of them. What I learned is that the best class sessions happen when I set up a problem and let the room work through it. The diversity of perspectives in an Executive MBA cohort, people from health care, finance, technology, manufacturing, government, and nonprofits, produces insights that no single instructor could generate alone.

That principle applies directly to development. The best projects are not the ones where the developer has all the answers. They are the ones where the developer listens to the community, the financing partners, the city officials, and the residents, and then synthesizes what they hear into a plan that works for everyone.

They Taught Me That Experience Is Not Enough

I grew up in Section 8 public housing. I served in the United States Air Force during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. I was the first African American Student Curator on the University of Missouri Board of Curators. I became the first African American principal at a top ten Missouri commercial real estate firm. I have traveled to over 50 countries and spoken in more than 40. My students respect that background, but they do not defer to it automatically, and they should not.

What they want to know is whether my experience translates into frameworks they can apply to their own challenges. A story about chairing the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee is interesting. A framework for how to evaluate a site selection decision that they can use in their own business is useful. My students pushed me to turn experience into transferable knowledge, and that discipline has made me a better developer, a better advisor, and a better leader.

They Taught Me That the Next Generation Is Ready

Every semester, I meet professionals who are ready to lead at levels beyond what their current organizations allow. They are strategic thinkers trapped in operational roles. They are visionaries stuck in meetings about process. They come to the Executive MBA program because they want tools, frameworks, and credentials that match their ambition.

Working with these students reinforced a conviction I hold deeply: the talent is already in the room. It just needs the right opportunity. That is the same conviction that drives our work at The Nash Group. The families we serve are not lacking ability. They are lacking stable housing. The communities we develop in are not lacking potential. They are lacking investment. The students I teach are not lacking intelligence. They are lacking access to the networks and knowledge that accelerate careers.

Leadership, at its core, is the act of removing barriers so that people can perform at the level they are capable of. I learned that in the classroom before I fully understood it in the boardroom.

The Lewis White Real Estate Center

As Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at UMKC, I have the opportunity to connect academic real estate education with the realities of the development industry. The Center serves as a bridge between the university and the professional community, and it gives students exposure to the practitioners, the deals, and the policy environments that will define their careers.

Directing the Center has taught me something else about leadership: institutions matter. Individual talent is essential, but it needs a platform. The Lewis White Real Estate Center is that platform for students who want to enter or advance in the real estate industry. Building that platform, sustaining it, and making it relevant to the current market is a different kind of development than constructing 120 housing units or structuring a $19.3 million deal. But it requires the same commitment to outcomes, the same willingness to listen, and the same belief that where you start out in life has nothing to do with where you end up.

What I Give Back

Teaching is not separate from my work as a developer. It is part of the same mission. Every student who leaves my classroom with a better understanding of how affordable housing finance works, how site selection decisions are made, how municipal policy shapes development outcomes, and how to lead with both data and conviction is someone who will make better decisions for their community.

I bring my current projects into the classroom. When I am working on a deal like The Mabion or Promise Place, my students hear about it in real time. They see how the financing is structured. They understand why we chose the 4% credit path. They learn what community engagement actually looks like when it is not a textbook exercise but a real conversation with real neighbors who have real concerns.

That exchange goes both ways. My students ask questions that force me to reexamine assumptions. They challenge conclusions that I have held for years. They bring perspectives from industries I have never worked in that illuminate problems I thought I understood completely.

The Lesson They Keep Teaching Me

The most consistent lesson my students teach me is that leadership is not a title. It is not a position on an organizational chart. It is the willingness to show up, to listen, to adapt, and to act in service of something larger than yourself.

I grew up in public housing. I earned eight degrees. I served my city, my state, and my country. But when I walk into that classroom at the Bloch School of Management, I am reminded that learning never stops, that expertise without humility is just arrogance, and that the best leaders are the ones who never stop being students themselves.

My students taught me that. And I am grateful every semester for the reminder.

Dr. Troy Nash is a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management. He is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC, and CEO and Co-Founder of AGI Affinity, LLC.

The Case for Bipartisan Housing Policy

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit was created in 1986 under President Ronald Reagan as part of the Tax Reform Act. It was a Republican president who signed into law the most successful affordable housing program in American history. That fact is worth sitting with for a moment, because it tells you something important about housing policy: when it works, it works across the aisle.

I have spent my career in the space where policy meets development. As Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017, I was nominated by Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and confirmed by the Missouri Senate on a bipartisan basis. The commission I served on administered the Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the Missouri LIHTC, and the Affordable Housing Assistance Tax Credit. The members came from different political backgrounds. The votes were not partisan. They were about whether a project would serve families, whether the financing was sound, and whether the developer could deliver.

That experience taught me that affordable housing is one of the few policy areas where bipartisan cooperation is not just possible. It is the norm. And it needs to stay that way.

Why LIHTC Works Across the Aisle

LIHTC is a tax credit, not a government spending program. That distinction matters politically. The credit incentivizes private investment in affordable housing by allowing investors to reduce their federal tax liability in exchange for equity in affordable housing developments. The government does not build the housing. Private developers do. The government does not own the housing. Private entities do. The government creates the incentive, and the private market responds.

This structure appeals to both sides of the political spectrum. Fiscal conservatives support LIHTC because it leverages private capital rather than expanding direct government spending. It uses market mechanisms to achieve a public policy goal. Progressives support LIHTC because it produces affordable housing for families who need it, serving residents at the lowest income levels in communities across the country.

Since 1986, LIHTC has financed the construction or rehabilitation of millions of affordable housing units. No other program comes close. And it has maintained bipartisan support through every administration, Republican and Democrat, for nearly four decades.

My Bipartisan Confirmation

When Governor Nixon nominated me to the Missouri Housing Development Commission, the confirmation process required a vote of the Missouri Senate. That Senate was not a body where partisan votes were unusual. But my confirmation was bipartisan. Senators on both sides voted to put me on the commission because they understood that housing is not a partisan issue. Families in Republican districts need affordable housing. Families in Democratic districts need affordable housing. The need does not care about party affiliation.

During my eight years as Vice Chairman, I never once saw a LIHTC allocation decision break along party lines. The debates were about geography, about whether rural projects were getting a fair share compared to urban ones, about per unit costs, about which populations were being underserved. Those are legitimate policy debates, and they happened within a bipartisan framework that both sides respected.

The Board of Curators Precedent

My bipartisan experience did not start at MHDC. In 1996, at 26 years old, I was nominated by Governor Mel Carnahan and confirmed by the Missouri Senate to the University of Missouri Board of Curators, becoming the first African American to hold the position in the university system's history. That confirmation was also bipartisan. The Senate confirmed me because the question was not about party. It was about whether I could serve over 55,000 college students throughout the state of Missouri effectively.

These experiences shaped my understanding of how policy is supposed to work. When the question is framed around outcomes, around families served, students educated, communities strengthened, the partisan noise fades. When the question becomes about scoring political points, the families lose.

What Bipartisan Housing Policy Looks Like on the Ground

Today, at The Nash Group, we are building 254 or more affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis with over $100 million in total development costs. Every one of those units depends on LIHTC, the bipartisan program that has been the backbone of affordable housing for nearly four decades.

The Mabion, our $19.3 million development bringing 57 homes to Beacon Hill in Kansas City, is a 4% federal LIHTC deal. Promise Place, our 85 unit development serving families at 30 to 60 percent of Area Median Income, is also a 4% federal deal backed by significant city resources. The Ville Wellness Campus in North St. Louis is a $75 million project integrating 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center.

None of these projects would exist without LIHTC. None of them would exist without the bipartisan consensus that created and sustained the program. When elected officials on both sides of the aisle agree that affordable housing matters, developers can build. When that consensus fractures, families pay the price.

The Threats to Consensus

Bipartisan support for LIHTC has held for decades, but it is not guaranteed. Every few years, tax reform conversations raise the possibility of changes to the credit. Rate adjustments, cap modifications, and program restructuring proposals all emerge when Congress takes up the tax code. Each of these conversations has the potential to weaken the program that millions of families depend on.

The developer community has a responsibility to make the case for LIHTC to both parties, in language that both parties understand. To fiscal conservatives: LIHTC leverages private investment, creates jobs, generates property tax revenue, and revitalizes neighborhoods without expanding government ownership of housing. To progressives: LIHTC produces more affordable housing than any other program in American history and serves the families who need it most.

Both of those statements are true simultaneously. That is the power of a bipartisan program.

What I Tell My Students

I teach in the Executive MBA Program at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management, and I direct the Lewis White Real Estate Center. My students come from across the political spectrum. When we discuss affordable housing policy, I tell them the same thing I am writing here: the most productive policy conversations happen when both sides focus on outcomes instead of ideology.

LIHTC works because it was designed to work for everyone. The investor gets a tax benefit. The developer gets equity. The city gets new housing stock and increased property tax revenue. The family gets a home. When a policy delivers outcomes for every stakeholder, the partisan incentive to oppose it disappears.

That is the model. And it is worth defending.

The Stakes

Where you live shapes who you become. I know this because I grew up in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City, raised by a single mother with six children. The housing I grew up in was made possible by government programs. The housing I build today is made possible by LIHTC, a program that exists because a Republican president and a bipartisan Congress agreed in 1986 that affordable housing was worth investing in.

That agreement has held for nearly 40 years. It has housed millions of families. It has created an entire industry of developers, investors, syndicators, and service providers dedicated to building affordable housing in every state in the country. It is one of the great success stories of American public policy, and it happened because both parties said yes.

The case for bipartisan housing policy is not theoretical. It is 57 homes at The Mabion. It is 85 families at Promise Place. It is 120 units at the Ville Wellness Campus. It is every family that will sleep in an affordable home tonight because somewhere, at some point, both sides of the aisle decided that housing matters more than politics.

That is the case. That is the commitment. And that is the work.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. He served as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission (2009-2017), confirmed by the Missouri Senate on a bipartisan basis. He currently serves as a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management.

Building a Father Daughter Development Company

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

I grew up without a father in the home. My mother raised six children by herself in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City, Missouri. We lived in poverty, on welfare, bouncing between public housing projects including Holy Temple Homes and Friendship Village Apartments. There was no blueprint for what a father daughter business partnership could look like, because there was no father in the picture.

That is the context for understanding what The Nash Group represents to me. When Arielle and I built this company together, it was not just a business decision. It was the correction of a cycle. It was proof that the story does not have to repeat itself.

Two Generations, One Mission

Arielle Nash is President and Co-Founder of The Nash Group. She watched me turn lived experience into lasting impact, and then she decided to build alongside me. That decision was hers. I did not ask her to join the family business. She chose it, and she came prepared.

Arielle is a Washington University graduate. She worked as a research analyst at Artemis Real Estate Partners before joining The Nash Group. She is fluent in Chinese and Spanish. She was named among Savoy Magazine's Most Influential Black Executives. She did not walk into this company on my name. She walked in with credentials, experience, and a perspective that complements mine in ways that make the firm stronger.

What She Brings That I Cannot

I have eight degrees. I have 35 years of experience. I chaired the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee on the Kansas City City Council. I served as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission. I have been in rooms that most people never enter. But here is what I have learned about building a company: the person who built it is not always the best person to carry it forward.

Arielle brings a generational perspective that I cannot replicate. She understands the markets, the technology, and the stakeholders of tomorrow. Her training at Artemis Real Estate Partners gave her institutional investment experience. Her language skills open doors in international markets. Her generation communicates differently, networks differently, and sees opportunity in places that my generation sometimes overlooks.

A father daughter company works not because we agree on everything, but because we bring different strengths to the same mission. She challenges my assumptions. I provide the institutional knowledge and the relationships. Together, we cover more ground than either of us could alone.

The Personal Foundation

People ask how we maintain the family relationship while running a company together. The honest answer is that the company is an extension of the relationship, not separate from it. The values that guide The Nash Group are the same values I tried to instill in my family long before there was a company.

When I was 25, I converted my mother's small house into a classroom. I bought used textbooks from the thrift store and tutored my three older brothers until they enrolled in college for the first time. My mother, at 55, studied for and received her GED with my help. When she passed away on March 15, 2003, she was a junior in college. UMKC posthumously awarded her a Bachelor's degree, and I accepted it on her behalf at commencement.

Education was the lever that changed my family's trajectory. That same conviction, that knowledge and opportunity can break cycles, is the foundation of the company Arielle and I run together. She grew up watching that conviction in action. Now she applies it every day.

How We Divide the Work

The Nash Group operates across eight disciplines: affordable housing, deal structuring, real estate advisory, infrastructure consulting, urban planning, education and training, professional speaking, and expert witness services. That is a wide platform, and it requires leadership that can move between disciplines without losing focus.

My background in public service, law, urban planning, public health, and finance means I tend to lead on the deals that require navigating government agencies, structuring complex financing, and managing stakeholder relationships that were built over decades. Arielle's background in institutional real estate research and her generation's fluency with data, technology, and emerging markets means she strengthens our analytical capabilities and our ability to communicate with a broader audience.

We are building 254 or more affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis, with over $100 million in total development costs. That portfolio exists because two generations are working on it simultaneously, each contributing what the other cannot.

The Ecosystem

The Nash Group is not a standalone company. It is the anchor of an ecosystem that includes AGI Affinity, our AI consulting firm that helps underserved communities close the digital divide, and The Nash Group Community Foundation, our 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on breaking cycles and building futures. Arielle serves in leadership across the ecosystem.

This structure was intentional. The problems we are trying to solve, housing instability, health inequity, digital exclusion, and economic immobility, do not exist in isolation. They require an integrated approach. A father daughter partnership gives us the ability to lead across all three entities with shared values and a unified vision, while bringing two different generational perspectives to each one.

What I Want Other Fathers to Know

I grew up without a father. I know exactly what that absence costs. It costs stability. It costs confidence. It costs the simple knowledge that someone who looks like you has navigated the world successfully and is willing to show you how.

Building a company with my daughter is the most meaningful thing I have done in my career. Not because of the units we are building or the dollars we are deploying, but because it represents the opposite of what I experienced as a child. It is presence. It is partnership. It is the deliberate construction of something that will outlast both of us.

To other fathers considering working with their children: do not wait for the perfect moment. The perfect moment is the one where you decide to build something together. Bring your experience. Let them bring their perspective. Trust that the combination will be stronger than either part alone.

Where you start out in life has nothing to do with where you end up. That is true for individuals, and it is true for families. The Nash Group is living proof.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC, CEO and Co-Founder of AGI Affinity, LLC, and Co-Founder of The Nash Group Community Foundation. Arielle Nash is President and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. Together they are building 254+ affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis.

Site Selection: The 10 Factors That Matter Most

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:00:00 GMT

Every development begins with dirt. Before the financing, before the architecture, before the community meetings, there is a piece of land and a question: is this the right site?

I have evaluated sites from two very different chairs. As Chairman of the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee on the Kansas City City Council from 2003 to 2007, I presided over the largest economic development boom in the city's history, directly impacting over $10 billion in development. I saw every kind of project come before the committee. I learned what made sites work and what made them fail. Later, as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017, I reviewed hundreds of LIHTC applications and saw firsthand how site selection determined whether a project scored well enough to get funded.

Today, as a developer building 254 or more affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis, I apply those lessons to every deal we pursue. Here are the 10 factors that matter most.

1. Zoning and Entitlements

Before you fall in love with a site, find out what you are allowed to build on it. Zoning determines density, use, setbacks, height, and parking requirements. If the site is not zoned for your intended use, you are looking at a rezoning process that adds time, cost, and political risk. I chaired the committee that heard those rezoning cases. I can tell you that a project with clean zoning has a fundamentally different trajectory than one that requires a public hearing and a council vote.

Check the entitlements early. Check them thoroughly. And if the zoning does not match your project, factor the time and uncertainty of a change into your decision before you commit.

2. Access to Transit and Infrastructure

For affordable housing, access to public transit is not a luxury. It is a necessity. The families we serve depend on buses, streetcars, and other transit options to get to work, school, and health care. A site that is disconnected from transit is a site that isolates the people it is supposed to help.

Beyond transit, evaluate the existing infrastructure: water, sewer, electrical capacity, road access. Infrastructure deficiencies can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to a project budget. At the City Council, I saw projects stall because developers underestimated the cost of bringing basic infrastructure to a site that looked affordable on paper but was expensive to develop in practice.

3. Proximity to Services and Amenities

State housing finance agencies score LIHTC applications partly on the services and amenities near the proposed site. Grocery stores, pharmacies, schools, health care facilities, and employment centers all matter. At MHDC, I saw applications score poorly because the developer chose a site in a service desert and could not demonstrate that residents would have access to basic needs.

This is also a matter of principle. At The Nash Group, we believe that affordable housing is an essential social determinant of health. If your home life is unstable, everything in your life is going to be unstable. But housing alone is not enough. The site has to connect residents to the services that support healthy, stable lives. That is why the Ville Wellness Campus in North St. Louis integrates 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center. The site was chosen specifically because of the opportunity to co-locate housing and health care.

4. Community Support and Political Will

No factor sinks more projects than community opposition. I have seen it from the council dais and I have seen it from the developer's side. A technically perfect site with hostile neighbors is a site that will cost you time, money, and potentially the project itself.

Do the community engagement before you commit to the site, not after. Talk to neighborhood associations, faith communities, local businesses, and elected officials. Understand the concerns. Address them honestly. When we broke ground on The Mabion in October 2024, Mayor Quinton Lucas and city leaders were at the ceremony. That did not happen by accident. It happened because we invested in the relationships long before we broke ground.

5. Environmental Conditions

Phase I and Phase II environmental assessments are not optional. They are essential. Brownfield sites can be excellent development opportunities, but the remediation costs have to be accounted for in your budget from day one. I have seen developers acquire sites at attractive prices only to discover contamination that consumed their entire contingency and then some.

Environmental conditions also affect your timeline. Remediation takes time, and lenders and investors need certainty about when a site will be clean and ready for construction. Factor environmental risk into your site selection decision, not just your budget.

6. Market Demand and Absorption

A site can check every physical and political box and still be the wrong choice if the market cannot absorb the units you intend to build. Market studies are required for LIHTC applications, and they should be required for your own decision making whether or not a state agency mandates them.

Understand the demand for affordable housing in the specific submarket where your site is located. How many income qualified households are in the area? What is the vacancy rate at comparable properties? Are there other developments in the pipeline that will compete for the same residents? These questions determine whether your project leases up on schedule or struggles to fill units.

7. Site Configuration and Development Costs

Not all land is created equal. Topography, soil conditions, lot shape, and size all affect what you can build and what it will cost. A large flat site with good soil is a different proposition than a steep, irregularly shaped parcel that requires extensive grading and foundation work.

Per unit development costs are scrutinized by state housing finance agencies, investors, and lenders. A site that drives up construction costs without adding units can make an otherwise viable deal unworkable. Evaluate the physical characteristics of the site with your architect and general contractor before you finalize acquisition.

8. Acquisition Cost and Basis

The price you pay for the land directly affects your eligible basis in a LIHTC deal, your total development cost, and your ability to structure a deal that pencils. Land that is donated, discounted, or publicly held can fundamentally change the economics of a project.

This is where municipal relationships matter. Cities and counties that are serious about affordable housing sometimes make publicly owned land available at below market prices or contribute land as part of a larger incentive package. As Promise Place demonstrates, significant city resources can make a 4% deal viable where it otherwise would not be. Land is often the first and most important city contribution.

9. Scoring Criteria Alignment

If you are pursuing LIHTC, your site selection should be informed by your state's Qualified Allocation Plan. The QAP sets the scoring criteria for competitive 9% applications and the threshold requirements for 4% deals. Different states prioritize different site characteristics: some reward proximity to transit, others reward location in high opportunity areas, others reward community revitalization efforts.

At MHDC, I saw applications that were strong in every other respect fall short because the site did not align with what the commission was prioritizing in that funding round. Read the QAP before you select your site. Understand what the state is looking for. Then choose a site that gives your application the strongest possible position.

10. Long Term Neighborhood Trajectory

This is the factor that separates experienced developers from first timers. A site exists in a neighborhood, and that neighborhood is either improving, stable, or declining. Your project will be affected by that trajectory for the entire 15 year compliance period and beyond.

Look at the neighborhood with a 20 year lens. Is there public investment coming? Are there other developments in the pipeline? Is the population growing or shrinking? Are schools improving? Is there a comprehensive plan or an economic development corridor plan that signals where the city is directing resources?

When I was on the City Council, I helped create economic development corridor plans that directed investment to underserved neighborhoods. I camped out for six days at 39th and Prospect to focus attention on decades of poor urban planning, redlining, and discrimination. Those efforts resulted in a citizen driven economic development corridor plan and attracted multimillion dollar investments to the area. The developers who paid attention to where the city was investing were the ones who selected the best sites.

The Through Line

These 10 factors are not a checklist you run through once and file away. They are a framework for thinking about how a piece of land connects to the families who will eventually live on it. Zoning, transit, services, community support, environmental conditions, market demand, site configuration, acquisition cost, scoring criteria, and neighborhood trajectory. Every one of them affects whether a project succeeds or fails, whether families get housed or do not.

At The Nash Group, every site we select reflects a simple conviction: where you live shapes who you become. We bring lived experience to that decision, because we know what is at stake when it is wrong. The dirt matters. Choose it carefully.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. He served as Chairman of the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee on the Kansas City City Council (2003-2007) and as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission (2009-2017). He currently serves as a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management.

Understanding 4% vs 9% LIHTC: A Decision Framework

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

If you are developing affordable housing in America, you will eventually sit across a table from a lender, a syndicator, or a state housing agency, and someone will ask you the question: 4% or 9%?

They are talking about the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. LIHTC is the most successful affordable housing program in the history of the United States. It has financed the construction or rehabilitation of millions of affordable housing units since Congress created it in 1986. And at the heart of every LIHTC deal is a fundamental choice between two credit rates that will shape everything about your project: the timeline, the financing structure, the competition, and ultimately, who gets housed and when.

I have been on both sides of this decision. As Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017, I helped administer the Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the Missouri LIHTC, and the Affordable Housing Assistance Tax Credit. I saw hundreds of applications. I voted on allocations. I learned what separates the projects that get funded from the ones that do not. Today, as a developer, I apply those lessons every time we structure a deal. Two of our current projects, The Mabion and Promise Place, are both 4% deals, but they are structured very differently, and those differences illustrate exactly why the 4% vs 9% decision framework matters even when you end up on the same side of it.

The Basics

The 9% credit is the more valuable of the two. It covers approximately 70% of a project's eligible basis, which means it generates significantly more equity from tax credit investors. That equity reduces the amount of debt the project has to carry, which reduces operating pressure and gives developers more room to serve residents at the lowest income levels.

The tradeoff is competition. The 9% credit is allocated by state housing finance agencies through a competitive application process. Each state receives a limited annual allocation based on population. In Missouri, MHDC administers that process. The demand far exceeds the supply. You are competing against every other affordable housing developer in the state, and the scoring criteria are rigorous. Location, readiness, community support, developer experience, financial feasibility, and the populations you intend to serve all factor into whether your application rises to the top.

The 4% credit works differently. It is paired with tax exempt bonds and is not subject to the same competitive allocation cap. If your project qualifies for bond financing and meets the program requirements, you can access the 4% credit without going through the competitive scoring process. The credit covers approximately 30% of eligible basis, which means less equity from investors. You will need to fill that gap with other sources: soft debt, grants, local incentives, or additional financing layers.

The advantage is speed and certainty. You are not waiting for an annual funding round. You are not competing against dozens of other applications for a limited pool. If your deal pencils with the lower credit, you can move.

The State Match Question

There is a dimension to the 4% decision that many people outside of development do not fully appreciate: the state match. In Missouri, some 4% deals receive a state LIHTC match that supplements the federal credit. That match can make a significant difference in your equity stack. But not every 4% deal gets it, and not every deal needs it. The question of whether you pursue the state match or structure your deal without it changes everything about how you finance the project, what additional resources you need, and how quickly you can move.

The Mabion: 4% Federal Only, No State Match

The Mabion is a $19.3 million development in the heart of Kansas City, honoring Ray Mabion Sr. and Jr., pillars of Kansas City's community. It is bringing 57 homes to Beacon Hill. We broke ground in October 2024 with Mayor Quinton Lucas and city leaders at the ceremony.

We structured The Mabion as a 4% federal LIHTC deal without the state match. That was a deliberate choice. Without the state match, we had a larger financing gap to fill. But we also had more flexibility in how we structured the deal and more control over our timeline. When you are not waiting on state credit allocation, you can move when you are ready to move.

The tradeoff is real. Less equity from the credit means you have to be more resourceful with your capital stack. It means finding the right combination of debt, local incentives, and creative financing to make the numbers work. But the upside is that you are not dependent on a single funding source, and you are not waiting for a decision that is out of your hands.

Promise Place: 4% Federal Only with Significant City Resources

Promise Place is an 85 unit affordable housing development serving Kansas City families at 30 to 60 percent of Area Median Income. Like The Mabion, it is a 4% federal only deal. But the financing structure is fundamentally different because Promise Place is backed by significant city resources.

That city investment changes the economics. When a municipality commits real resources to a project, it fills the gap that the lower 4% credit creates. It also signals to other financing partners that the project has community backing, which matters when you are assembling a capital stack from multiple sources. City resources can take many forms: land contributions, tax increment financing, HOME funds, CDBG allocations, local housing trust fund dollars, or direct financial commitments.

For Promise Place, the city's commitment was essential to making an 85 unit deal work at 4% without the state match. It is a model that other developers should study: when the federal credit alone is not enough and the state match is not available, the municipality becomes your most important financing partner.

Two 4% Deals, Two Different Paths

The Mabion and Promise Place are both 4% federal deals. But they arrived at that structure through different logic and different capital stacks. The Mabion at 57 units and $19.3 million relies on a combination of investor equity from the 4% credit and creative gap financing. Promise Place at 85 units leverages its larger scale and significant city resources to close the gap the lower credit creates.

This is the point that gets lost in the 4% vs 9% conversation. The choice is not binary. Even within the 4% category, there are multiple paths depending on your project scale, your market, your municipal relationships, and whether the state match is available. The developer's job is to find the path that gets the project built and the families housed.

The Decision Framework

After years on both sides of this process, I have developed a straightforward framework for the 4% vs 9% decision. It comes down to five questions.

1. What is your project scale? Larger projects with more units tend to favor the 4% path because the bond volume supports the economics. Smaller projects often need the deeper subsidy of the 9% credit to pencil.

2. What income levels are you targeting? If you are serving residents at the lowest end of the AMI spectrum, the 9% credit gives you more equity and less debt, which translates to lower rents and more operating flexibility. The 4% credit can serve low income residents too, but you need to be creative with your financing stack.

3. How competitive is your state's 9% round? In Missouri, the competition is intense. MHDC receives far more applications than it can fund. If your project scores well on the state's criteria, the 9% path is worth pursuing. If there are weaknesses in your application, you may be better served by the 4% route rather than losing a year waiting for a decision that may not come.

4. Is the state match available? A 4% deal with the state match is a very different proposition than a 4% deal without it. If the state match is available and your project qualifies, it significantly strengthens your equity position. If it is not available, you need to identify other gap financing sources before you commit to the 4% path.

5. What municipal resources can you access? As Promise Place demonstrates, city resources can make or break a 4% deal. If your municipality is committed to affordable housing and willing to put resources behind that commitment, the 4% path becomes much more viable. If those resources are not available, you may need the 9% credit to make the deal work.

What I Learned at MHDC

Serving as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017 was the most important professional education I have ever received on how affordable housing actually works. I reviewed applications from every corner of the state. I saw what made deals succeed and what made them fail. I learned that the best developers are not the ones with the most creative financing. They are the ones who understand their community, demonstrate genuine need, and present projects that are ready to go.

MHDC administers the Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the Missouri LIHTC, and the Affordable Housing Assistance Tax Credit. The commission does not just allocate credits. It evaluates whether a proposed development will actually serve the families it claims to serve, whether it will be financially sustainable over the long term, and whether the developer has the capacity to deliver. Those are the questions I ask myself now as a developer, because I know they are the questions the commission will ask me.

Beyond the Spreadsheet

The 4% vs 9% decision is ultimately a financial question, but it is never only a financial question. Behind every unit count is a family. Behind every AMI target is someone's rent check. Behind every financing gap is the question of whether a project happens at all.

At The Nash Group, we develop 100% affordable housing. Every unit we build serves families at 30 to 60 percent of Area Median Income. Whether we use the 4% credit with or without the state match, or the 9% credit, depends on the project, the market, the municipal partnership, and the families we are trying to reach. The credit is a tool. The mission is the families.

The Mabion will bring 57 homes to Beacon Hill. Promise Place will house 85 families in Kansas City. Both are 4% federal deals. Both required different strategies to get to the finish line. And both represent the same commitment: that every family deserves a stable, affordable place to call home.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC. He served as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission from 2009 to 2017. He currently serves as a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management.

From Section 8 to CEO: Lessons in Resilience

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 09:00:00 GMT

I grew up in Section 8 public housing in Kansas City, Missouri. My mother raised six children by herself, on welfare, without a father in the home. We bounced between public housing projects, including Holy Temple Homes and Friendship Village Apartments. That was my world.

As a child in the Kansas City desegregation program, I was bused across town to attend predominantly white schools, including Korte Elementary and Nowlin Middle School. I learned early what it meant to navigate worlds that were not designed for me. I learned how to read a room before I could read a balance sheet.

The Turning Point

There was no single moment that changed everything. It was a series of decisions, each one building on the last. The first was joining the United States Air Force. I served during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. At 20 years old, I was appointed Dorm Chief of Honor Flight 048, responsible for leading and mentoring over 50 airmen. The military gave me structure, discipline, and a belief that where you start out in life has nothing to do with where you end up.

While on active duty, I earned my Bachelor of Science in Economics from Wesley College. When I received my honorable discharge, I carried forward the values of duty, honor, and community. Those values have defined every decision I have made since.

Family First

After the Air Force, I came home to Kansas City. I had matured, and I understood the impact I could have on other people. But my first priority was my family.

At 25 years old, I converted my mom's small house into a classroom. I bought used textbooks from the local thrift store, tutored my family, and helped my three older brothers enroll in college for the first time. My mother was not left out. At 55 years old, with my help, she studied for and received her GED.

When she passed away on March 15, 2003, she was a junior in college. The University of Missouri at Kansas City posthumously awarded her a Bachelor's degree. I accepted the degree on her behalf at commencement. That moment is the reason I do this work.

Eight Degrees, One Mission

I went on to earn eight degrees. Not for the titles. Each degree was strategically acquired to better serve communities in need. A Master of Public Health from Brown University. A Doctor of Education from Saint Louis University. A Juris Doctor from UMKC School of Law. A Master of Urban Planning from USC. An MBA in Finance, and master's degrees in Economics and Political Science from UMKC. Every credential was a tool, and every tool was built for a purpose.

People sometimes ask why eight degrees. The answer is simple: the problems I am trying to solve do not fit inside a single discipline. Affordable housing intersects with public health, finance, law, urban planning, education, and policy. You cannot build communities if you only understand one piece of the puzzle.

Public Service

I was elected to the Kansas City City Council representing the Third District at Large. As Chairman of the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee from 2003 to 2007, I presided over the largest economic development boom in the city's history, directly impacting over $10 billion in development. I also served as Vice Chairman of the Budget and Audit Committee, with jurisdiction over the city's nearly $1 billion budget.

Later, I was nominated by Governor Jay Nixon and confirmed by the Missouri Senate on a bipartisan basis to serve as Vice Chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission. MHDC administers the Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the Missouri LIHTC, and the Affordable Housing Assistance Tax Credit. That experience gave me the knowledge of how affordable housing really works in Missouri, from application to allocation.

Breaking Barriers

In 1996, at 26 years old, I was nominated by Governor Mel Carnahan and confirmed by the Missouri Senate to the University of Missouri Board of Curators, becoming the first African American to hold the position in the university system's history. I served as the voice for over 55,000 college students throughout the state.

I became the first African American principal at a top ten Missouri commercial real estate firm. I was asked to chair the Salvation Army's Annual Christmas Campaign in Kansas City in 2019, only the second African American to chair the event in the Salvation Army's long history with the city.

None of these firsts were the goal. The goal was always the work itself, and the communities that the work was meant to serve.

Why Housing

Where you live shapes who you become. I know this because I lived it. If your home life is unstable, everything in your life is going to be unstable. That is not an opinion. That is what my Master of Public Health studies at Brown confirmed, and what my years of board service at Samuel Rogers Community Health Center reinforced.

Today, The Nash Group is building 254 or more affordable housing units across Kansas City and St. Louis, with over $100 million in total development costs. Every unit serves families at 30 to 60 percent of Area Median Income. Every project connects housing to health, because affordable housing is an essential social determinant of health.

The Ville Wellness Campus in North St. Louis is a $75 million project integrating 120 affordable housing units with a 45,000 square foot health center, developed in partnership with CareSTL Health, Vecino Group, the City of St. Louis, the Missouri Foundation for Health, and Washington University. The Mabion, a $19.3 million development honoring Ray Mabion Sr. and Jr., is bringing 57 homes to the heart of Kansas City. Promise Place will deliver 85 units of dignified housing for Kansas City families.

The Lesson

People ask me what the lesson is. I tell them the same thing I tell my students at UMKC, where I serve as a professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center: where you start out in life has nothing to do with where you end up.

Section 8 was not a ceiling. It was the foundation. Every challenge I faced as a child gave me something that no degree could teach: the ability to see the people behind the numbers, to understand that a housing unit is not just a building, it is somebody's chance to start over.

That is what drives The Nash Group. That is what drives me. And that is the story I will keep telling until every family in every zip code has the foundation to thrive.

Dr. Troy Nash is CEO and Co-Founder of The Nash Group, LLC, CEO and Co-Founder of AGI Affinity, LLC, and Co-Founder of The Nash Group Community Foundation. He serves as a Professor in the Executive MBA Program and Director of the Lewis White Real Estate Center at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management.