Denver-based real estate developer St. Charles Town Company has received $68 million in financing for the construction of Aspgren Park Apartments, a 216-unit workforce housing community to be located at 728 South Lipan Street in the Athmar Park neighborhood of Denver. The community will replace a former railroad storage lot and will include a unit mix catering to families as well as veterans transitioning from active duty to civilian life.
“St. Charles focuses on finding sites that place housing, employment, and transportation within walking distance of each other, and we are pleased to have had the opportunity to purchase this site from the Kachulis family of the United Railroad company,” said Charlie Woolley, founding principal and president of St. Charles. Darrin Grommeck, CFO and principal for St Charles added “We are so thankful to our new and repeat financing partners, without whom this project would not have been possible due to an extraordinarily difficult inflationary environment.”
The existing on-site barn, a remnant from the site’s past as a celery farm and greenhouse, will be re-utilized in the development. The site’s history additionally served as design inspiration for the architecture team at KTGY Architecture + Planning of Denver, who balanced the simplistic influence of the barn with adjacent post-war housing to create a modern aesthetic reminiscent of a Scandinavian village. The community will offer primarily two- and three-bedroom units for families and veterans, a clubhouse with pool, and a playground. The site also contains an interior greenway with garden mews and a Makerspace.
The development of the community was made possible with the help of many repeat financing partners of St. Charles. The project will be developed with construction financing provided by KeyBank Community Development Lending & Investment, National Association, permanent financing provided by Citi Community Capital, and tax credit equity from CREA, LLC. Private activity bonds and 4% tax credits were awarded from the Colorado Housing and Financing Authority. Aspgren Park received critical acquisition loans from Enterprise Community Loan Fund, Inc. and Mercy Community Capital.
“Recognizing that multifamily living doesn’t always allow for residents to explore more space-intensive creative interests, we’ve been looking for opportunities within our developments to meet that need,” said Jordan Zielinski. “Especially as this development is targeted at military families and veterans returning to civilian life, we felt it was important to provide a maker space to enable exploration of different crafts within this community.”
Construction will begin in May and is expected to finish in the fall of 2023.
