Connecting the Wayne Theatre to revitalization efforts in the city’s downtown, the Wayne Theatre Alliance saw an opportunity to simultaneously pay homage to the building’s history and catalyze economic development in the city’s downtown with a performance center for the arts.

The Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, was established in order to preserve and promote the musical heritage of Bristol. With focused collaboration between public and private entities on both the Virginia and Tennessee sides of town, the Birthplace of Country Music Cultural Heritage Center was born in 2014.

We are excited to announce that VCDC’s lending affiliate, VCDF, has received an award of $450,000 from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) to launch a new loan product designed to attract developers to rural areas of Virginia and West Virginia.

The New Markets Tax Credit Program was established to spur investments in operating businesses and real estate projects located in low-income communities. The program attracts investment capital by permitting individual and corporate investors to receive a tax credit against their Federal income tax return in exchange for making equity investments in specialized financial institutions.