Price, 40, who heads National City's operations in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, says the Cleveland-based banking powerhouse will be aggressive when it comes to working with businesses and nonprofit groups in Cincinnati that provide housing and economic-development projects in low-income neighborhoods.

He also said National City would boost efforts to make more loans to businesses in the region owned by African-Americans, women and other minorities.

And with its buyout of Provident, National City will give the region's second-largest banking company something it did not have: a community-development corp.

A CDC is typically a for-profit unit of a bank that provides equity, capital, loans and other sources of financing to help meet the requirements of the Community Reinvestment Act. The CRA is a federal law that requires banks to make loans, operate branches and make investments in low-income areas.

Most of the region's big banks, including Fifth Third, Provident, U.S. Bank, PNC, Huntington, Key and Bank One, have similar operations for investments and lending in low-income areas. But area leaders who represent low-income residents and minority-owned businesses said more needs to be done.

National City has been a supporter and provider of such investment in its hometown, said Daryl Rush, director of community development for the city of Cleveland.

"National City has worked well with our CDCs in providing loan products and project financing for all types of housing, including moderate- to low-income families," he said.

Indeed, National City has invested $150 million in equity investments in low-income neighborhoods since CRA began.

In contrast, Key Bank, also based in Cleveland and that city's largest bank based on deposits, has put $124 million in equity investment and lending into that city during that time.

Price said National City was one of the nation's first banks to form a community-development corporation.

The bank has invested more than $617 million in equity and revitalization projects primarily in the Midwestern states where its operates since 1982.

The company said those efforts have produced 37,000 housing units and 1.3 million square feet of commercial projects, including loft apartments in downtown Pittsburgh and Detroit, new apartments in Kalamazoo, Mich., and other development in blighted areas in Fort Wayne, Ind.

"You will see more of the same of that from us in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky," Price said.

Other banks pressured

Jim King is confident National City will put more pressure on Greater Cincinnati's large banks to boost their lending efforts to local businesses and groups that serve predominantly black neighborhoods and low-income areas.

King, executive director of the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, said National City in April provided his group a $687,000 equity investment to build 24 new townhomes in Evanston.

His group is a nonprofit community-development corporation that builds housing and commercial developments in city neighborhoods.

Work on the new Jonathan Meadows townhomes is expected to begin in November.

The 1,900-square-foot units will include three bedrooms, 21/2 baths and two-car garages and sell for about $175,000.

The project is designed to draw people back to Evanston and to increase and stabilize existing property values there, said King.

The group also hopes the project will attract investors to build or rehab vacant buildings and empty lots into affordable housing.

King said National City's investment helped his group get the remaining financing faster - and with fewer restrictions - from the Cincinnati Development Fund and the city of Cincinnati to begin construction on the $4 million project.

Charles Montgomery Sr., founder and president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Development Corp. in Indianapolis from 1987 to 2001, said National City frequently lent money to community development groups in the city during his tenure.

Montgomery, now executive director of the Indianapolis Black Chamber of Commerce, predicted National City would be an aggressive player in community-development lending in Cincinnati.

"They will help revitalize and rebuild things such as low-income housing in your city," he said.

Those efforts will be welcomed in low-income neighborhoods and by minority residents and minority-owned business in the region, community leaders say.

Mario San Marco, chairman of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce, said there's only one traditional bank branch, a U.S. Bank, and a credit union in the neighborhood. Though some banks have ATMs in the community, he said, they don't offer the same level of services as a community bank.

"Clearly, Over-the-Rhine is under-banked," he said. De Asa Brown, president and CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce, said minority business owners tell her there often are not enough branches in neighborhoods where their businesses are located. She also said 65 percent to 80 percent of the chamber's more than 800 members say one of their greatest barriers to starting up businesses or expanding existing businesses is getting bank loans.

"There is a need for more bank branches to be in neighborhoods with a heavy concentration of black-owned businesses," she said.

"And with National City being a new player in the community, I hope they don't miss it."

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E-mail jmckinney@enquirer.com