New affordable apartments are coming to Albuquerque's West Side

New affordable housing is coming to Albuquerque’s West Side.

Developers on Tuesday broke ground on the San Roque Apartments, a 137-unit apartment complex located in the 400 block of Coors NW.

Residents will need to qualify as low-income to rent in the building. Construction will span 14 months, said Evelyn Camp, development associate for Thomas Development Co.

The complex will feature one-, two- and three-bedroom units with rents ranging from $450 to $1,246 per month. The complex will be four stories, with a roof patio, interior bike storage, a gym, community meeting rooms, covered parking and a courtyard. Local nonprofit Supportive Housing Coalition and developer Thomas Development will share ownership of the complex and Monarch Properties will manage it.

An adjacent 100-unit affordable senior housing complex, La Serena Apartments, is also slated for construction in October, Camp said.

Some of the biggest challenges in building affordable housing center on the people it serves and what such development brings to a community, said Laura Chavez, CEO of the Supportive Housing Coalition.

"I'm going to be really transparent and say that I think one of the greatest barriers is stigma and stereotype around affordable housing development," Chavez said.

According to Chavez, developments like San Roque have a lasting economic impact.

“The Housing Trust Fund alone for the state of New Mexico has a 25-to-1 rate of return on investment, which benefits everyone, not just the residents and the investors but also the taxpayers," Chavez said. "A development like this, for example, creates more than 100 jobs, which provides even further stimulus to the local economy.”

Construction on the apartments was slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic and increased costs.

“We had to reevaluate the cost of the project, reevaluate feasibility and still try to keep it affordable to the taxpayers, but also ensure that affordability for future residents as well,” Chavez said.

The developers had to shift the scope of the project, find different building materials and supplies and leverage more funding. It took more than three years to get to a groundbreaking.

The construction costs should total $35 million, said Thomas Mannschreck, Thomas Development's CEO. HB Construction is the builder and Erstad Architect is designing the apartments.

“We'll spend about 80 to 85 cents of that $35 million on the dollar locally and we feel really, really strongly that that's the right thing to do,” Mannschreck told the crowd gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking.

Funding in part came from $19.7 million in low-income housing tax credits, $2.6 million from the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund, $800,000 in federal HOME funds, and $1.3 million from the federal National Housing Trust Fund, said Jeff Payne, chief lending officer with the Mortgage Finance Authority.

The City of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County leveraged funds that helped push the project forward, Chavez said. Bernalillo County approved project revenue bonds to provide tax-exempt financing for the land acquisition, construction and equipment. Project revenue bonds are not a debt to the county. Instead, the company is responsible for paying bondholders.

The West Side is an at times overlooked core part of the city, Mayor Tim Keller said. The new development will help meet the needs of additional housing stock, which Keller estimates is around 20,000 units.

“Anyone who lives on the West Side knows that this stretch from Coors to Central pretty much over to Montaño is one of our most dense and most vibrant areas in the city,” Keller said. “But what we often see is a lack of investment, frankly, in amenities around us, whether it is the swimming pool or the police station.”