The Steam Plant and Federal tax credits

As I read the above linked article from the Toledo Blade, this portion of the article caught my attention:

Mr. Jackson and Mr. Ball hired Cleveland architect Jonathan Sandvick to design the building and have applied for federal historic tax credits to reduce the cost of financing 20 percent. The project has to comply with National Park Service standards for rehabilitating historic structures to get the tax credits.

Mr. Ball said they are “very close” to approval of the tax credits.

But Franco Ruffini, deputy state historic preservation officer, said the developers haven’t submitted the application yet.

Mr. Ball said the architects are working directly through the park service in Washington to ensure the design meets the standards for the tax credits.

“We have gone as far as we can with site work without jeopardizing the tax credits,” Mr. Ball said.

This left me wondering, did they apply for the federal historic tax credits thru Washington and not thru Columbus? How does this process work? I have been doing research on this project and will continue to do so, but felt this information was important enough to provide clarification now.

Mr. Franco Ruffini, as stated above in the Blade excerpt, is the deputy state historic preservation officer, he was kind enough to take some time with me this morning to answer my questions.

As I understand it after talking to Mr. Ruffini, it is true that the formal part two application has not been filed yet. That document will be filed with his department in Columbus, which will then make a recommendation and forward the completed application to the National Park Services. Mr. Ruffini also told me that he was aware that Water Street Development Co, was working closely with John Sandor of the National Park Service on what he referred to as "single issue questions" as an example he used "are these windows correct". All of these single issue questions are a part of the larger full application process and according to Mr. Ruffini, by insuring all of these single issues are being handled properly thru the National Park Service, it will actually benefit the whole process once the final full application is received.

So, with a big thank you to Mr. Franco Ruffini, we all know more about this system works. While of course there are still concerns with this project especially given the rest of the news of the switch in contractors, it appears the application process for the federal historic tax credits is....steaming along....