Denver – A groundbreaking ceremony is slated for a second Transit-Oriented (TOD) Affordable Housing Project near Denver’s Light Rail Yale Station near the intersection of I-25 and Yale Avenue.
Mile High Development, LLC, and Koelbel and Company, Inc., have partnered to develop GardenCourt Yale Station, a four-story, 66-unit apartment complex designed as Affordable Workforce Housing. This is the partnership’s third collaboration in the TOD/affordable-housing arena since 2009, including Colorado’s first such development, The Apartments at Yale Station, an affordable-living complex for 55-and-over residents.
“Workforce housing” is a term used to describe residences deemed affordable to working adults in households earning up to 60 percent of the area median income. As a “workforce” project, GardenCourt’s adjacency to Yale Station gives residents easy Bus and Light Rail access to the state’s largest employment centers in downtown and the Denver Technological Center.
The apartment complex will have on-site leasing and provide residents with amenities such as bike storage, a fitness room, a community room (with a computer lab) and a courtyard with barbeque grills. One RTD Neighborhood EcoPass is included with each unit’s rent. Available apartments include one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging in size from 591 to 941 square feet.
It’s anticipated that construction will be completed by March 2016. A web site is under construction at gardencourtdenver.com to provide additional information to interested parties.
The architect for Garden Court is J.G. Johnson (jgjohnson.com), while Taylor Kohrs (taylorkohrs.com) serves as general contractor.
“Affordable housing benefits more than just occupants,” said George Thorn, president and founder of Mile High Development. “It also serves the community at large through increased employment and spending, plus it helps employers attract and retain quality workers.”
Buz Koelbel, president and CEO of Koelbel and Company, says affordable housing also promotes sustainability in urban settings, especially in a transit-oriented setting. “These projects are thoughtfully designed not only to integrate housing and transportation, but to support smart land use and infrastructure investments,” he said.
Mile High Development (MHD) has been a force in helping Denver become a pacesetting example of how city centers can reemerge as vibrant centers of public life in the post-industrial age. The firm has been a partner in this process since the 1970s when signs of an urban renaissance first emerged in Denver. For more information on MHD, please visit milehighdevelopment.com.
Based in Denver, Koelbel and Company is the longest-operating family-owned real estate development firm in the region. The company has participated in the evolution of Colorado real estate for more than six decades and continues its tradition of meeting Coloradans’ real estate needs by embracing 21st century sustainable concepts such as self-sufficient urban neighborhoods, transit-oriented residential/retail complexes, and the emerging trend toward dynamic collaborative office design. For more information, please visit koelbelco.com.
The land for GardenCourt Yale Station Apartments was purchased from the Denver TOD Fund, a partnership between ULC, Enterprise Community Partners, the City and County of Denver and several other investors including Wells Fargo and CHFA, who joined together to establish the country’s first affordable housing TOD acquisition fund in the country.
Capitalized with $15 million of public, private and philanthropic capital, the fund supports the creation and preservation of affordable homes and community assets through strategic property acquisition along current and future transit corridors.
The Denver Fund made eight acquisition loans to create and preserve more than 625 affordable homes, a new public library and well over 100,000 square feet of supportive commercial space, all easily accessible by public transit. Enterprise has since improved upon the program, expanding the fund to a $24 million regional acquisition resource. For more information and to find a list of partners in the TOD Fund, please go to urbanlandc.org/denver-transit-oriented-development-fund/
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