Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing Breaks Ground on Columbia Hills – HAND – June 13, 2016
Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) broke ground on its newest project, Columbia Hills Apartments, which will be located at 1010 S. Frederick Street in Arlington. In a blustery but spirit-filled celebration, APAH’s finance, design and building partners, elected officials, neighbors and APAH leaders gathered to launch construction on the 229-unit building.
With a sentiment echoed throughout the proceedings, Libby Garvey, Chairman of the Arlington County Board, praised the Columbia Hills project as “a wonderful example of what we can do when everyone works together for the community. Today there are just 9,600 affordable homes in Arlington, yet there are 17,000 low income families here in our community right now in need of affordable homes.”
Closing the festivities, Nina Janopaul, APAH President and CEO, observed “it is incredible what this community can accomplish when we link arms and muscle through complicated projects like Columbia Hills. We do it because we believe in this cause; we believe in the diversity of our community and we believe that Arlington is stronger when the 17,000 low income families who are our friends and neighbors are able to stay here in our community.”
Columbia Hills Apartments is one of the first projects to be developed under the Arlington County’s award-winning Columbia Pike Neighborhoods Plan and will contribute significantly to meeting the Plan’s goal of preserving 3,000 affordable homes along Columbia Pike. The building will be an attractive, new, eight-story apartment complex that includes community rooms for resident programs and a relocated playground for young children. The property includes 10 permanent supportive housing units and 13 accessible units to meet the diverse needs of the community, including senior and disabled residents who cannot live comfortably in the neighboring Columbia Grove walk-up apartments.
Located at 1010 Frederick Street, just a block off Columbia Pike, Columbia Hills is an innovative and highly efficient $91M project that includes land donated by APAH and M&T Bank, , federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), innovative hybrid financing. Arlington County loaned $18.5 million from its Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) project which will repaid back by APAH into the County’s revolving fund. Additional funding is being provided by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta and the Virginia Housing Trust Fund.
