A 172-unit development is being built to help meet the housing needs of workers in Breckenridge, Colorado.
The new community will serve residents earning between 80% and 120% of the area median income (AMI), with studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartment homes.
“Alta Verde Workforce is the product of the vision of the town of Breckenridge,” says Kimball Crangle, Colorado market president for developer Gorman & Co. “The town has long been committed to delivering housing for local workers.”
Located about 9,600 feet above sea level, Breckenridge offers skiing in the winter and a range of other outdoor activities the rest of the year, making it a popular destination for visitors. However, finding housing can be tough for locals.
Constrained by land and high construction costs, Colorado’s resort towns face a significant shortage of housing for their workforce. A recent needs assessment found that Summit County, where Breckenridge is located, needs about 2,900 rental housing units up to 80% of the AMI. By 2023, the gap is projected to grow to 3,400 units.
Alta Verde Workforce is the second phase of the net-zero neighborhood Alta Verde. It is next to an initial 80-unit affordable housing development that is scheduled to be completed in December.
Gorman & Co. recently earned the American Planning Association Colorado Chapter’s 2022 Merit Award for Sustainability and Planning for the Alta Verde neighborhood project. While developing a project in the high alpine climate, the team worked to reduce energy consumption and make the homes comfortable for residents, Crangle says.
Alta Verde’s design fine-tunes the building envelope, site orientation, and mechanical systems to increase efficiency and reduce energy demand. The performance-based design is leveraged by an on-site photovoltaic system to offset the energy used on an annual basis while providing a timeless design complementary to the surrounding natural environments.
For the approximately $76 million Alta Verde Workforce development, which began construction this summer, Gorman & Co. is utilizing financing from Lument and Fannie Mae’s non-low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) unfunded forward loan product, with bonds issued by the town of Breckenridge’s housing authority and Stifel acting as the investment banker. Vectra Bank is the construction lender. In addition, the team used the Middle-Income Access Program from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) plus funding from the town of Breckenridge and private equity.
“CHFA is not only dedicated to the tax credit program that they run, but they’re also trying to find a way to help solve the housing shortages that many of our communities are seeing and have created this Middle-Income Access loan program to help fund missing-middle rental projects,” Crangle says.
For the approximately $32 million affordable housing development, Gorman & Co. utilized LIHTCs from CHA, which were syndicated by the National Equity Fund. The project was also supported by the town of Breckenridge, Lument, Fannie Mae, Colorado Division of Housing, and Colorado Department of Local Affairs.