City Brokers Bond Program for M/WBEs
Date Posted: April 18, 2016
Posted In: News,
From The St. Louis American: The City of St. Louis has brokered a new Gateway Surety Bond Program designed to help minority- and women-owned construction companies obtain surety bonds that normally do not qualify based on standard underwriting guidelines.
Howard Hayes, director of Minority Business Development & Compliance for the St. Louis Development Corporation, developed the program with Community Insurance Center, a division of Inner-City Underwriting Agency.
“Surety bonds are required for all public financed projects. Most minority and women owned construction firms can’t bid on these projects because they don’t qualify for surety bonding,” Hayes said.
“This inability to access financing and bonding is consistently identified by minority and women owned construction firms as the major barriers preventing growth and development. St. Louis intends to change this.”