Archway Communities to Expand Affordable Housing in Pueblo, Colo.

Archway Communities, based in Lakewood, Colo., has acquired the land for the future construction of Riverly Apartments from Archway Communities near downtown Pueblo, Colo. 

Riverly will include 90 affordable apartments. Archway recently received a $2.5 million land-banking award through Colorado’s Proposition 123, a voter-approved initiative designed to increase affordable housing statewide. Land-banking funds are private equity or private credit vehicles that purchase and hold undeveloped land on behalf of homebuilders or developers until they are ready to build. 

“We’ve been looking, in the last couple years, at expanding statewide into specific communities where we see a really high need for affordable housing,” Sarah Blanchard, director of real estate at Archway, told CoStar News. “We always look carefully at the data in the communities.”

Currently, Pueblo is facing a shortage of approximately 5,000 affordable housing units for low-income households. “That not only makes it really difficult for folks to find housing in that community, but it hurts the entire city and region when we don’t have affordable homes for families,” Blanchard added. 

The Riverly also will rely on the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, which is a main financing source for affordable housing across the country.  Blanchard also told CoStar that the project reflects a broader national trend in which demand for affordable housing continues to outpace supply while developers compete for a limited pool of tax credits needed to make projects financially feasible. Rising living costs and funding constraints have further complicated efforts to build new affordable housing, she added.

Blanchard said Pueblo’s housing market is characterized by aging housing stock and limited new rental construction, particularly in neighborhoods near downtown.

“There has not been a lot of new construction projects in the rental market recently,” she said. “There are some market apartment buildings in the suburban Pueblo area but not so much in the neighborhoods that we have been focused on, closer to downtown.”

The funding requires Archway to begin construction within 10 years. Archway plans to start construction in 2030, and Riverly Apartments is slated to open in 2031.