Colorado State University and its development partners broke ground recently on 180 apartments at 2908 S. Timberline Road, the first step toward meeting a growing need for housing for CSU employees.

Rendezvous Trail Apartments — named for the trail that skirts the perimeter — is the first workforce housing project undertaken by CSU and involves a three-way partnership with Tetrad Property Group and Timberline Church.

Sixty of the 180 apartments will be set aside for CSU employees making between 60% and 100% of area median income.

As part of the deal, Timberline swapped 10 acres of land along the church's southeast edge with five acres owned by CSU on Timberline Road south of the church. When the land swap was finalized last week, CSU donated its land to Tetrad, which will build and operate the 180 apartments.

Donating the land to Tetrad reduces the cost of the units, allowing them to provide the deed-restricted affordable units, said Brett Anderson, special assistant to CSU System Chancellor Tony Frank. Tetrad now owns the property, but CSU has a binding contract to ensure affordability of the 60 units for a minimum of 20 years. "That way if they ever sell the building, the restriction would follow through," Anderson said.

Providing affordable housing for its workforce has been a top priority for CSU, which has a number of other initiatives to help employees afford housing in a city where median home prices have topped $626,000.

“As a university concerned with equity and with attracting and retaining the best staff and faculty, it matters a great deal that too many of our employees can’t afford to live in the community where they work,” Interim CSU President Rick Miranda said at the groundbreaking ceremony Sept. 28, according to Source, a CSU publication. “We know from our Employee Housing Needs Assessment that we already have more than enough demand to fill these 60 units.

“We also know that, over the last decade, our lowest-income employees have been the ones pushed farther and farther from campus, adding the cost of a longer commute to their housing burden. That commute makes it harder to pick up a sick child from school, harder to take part in the life of our campus, and harder just to make ends meet,” Miranda said.

Fort Collins' 2022 AMI, set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is $75,200 for a single person or $107,300 for a family of four. Someone making 80% of that would earn about $60,100, or about $85,800 for a family of four, and someone making 60% would earn $45,120 and $64,380 for a family of four.

An apartment is considered affordable to rent if a household earning 80% or less of AMI pays no more than 30% of their gross monthly income toward rent, including utilities.

Of the 60 units reserved for CSU workers, six will be for those earning 60% AMI, 48 for those at 80% AMI and six at 100% AMI, Anderson said. "We felt we have a few employees at the lower end of the income spectrum and really wanted to help them. That's how we came up with six" for those earning up to 60%.

"One-hundred percent AMI doesn't equate to market rate," Anderson said. Average rents in Fort Collins are nearing $2,000 per month, depending on size and amenities.

The apartments include seven three-story buildings with 24 or 36 units.  The apartment mix includes 96 one-bedroom, 78 two-bedroom and six three-bedroom apartments.

Anderson said he expects the first buildings to be ready for occupancy late next year, with all buildings completed by February or March 2024.

CSU has not finalized the process for applying for the 60 units, but Anderson said "we want to ensure those who need them the most are getting access to them. We're doing everything we can (to help provide affordable housing) but we know 60 is not enough."

The university's Office of Housing Programs is working with different factions on campus to flesh out the process, which it hopes to have in place by the end of this year. "We'll have to look at family income," Anderson said. "We could have an employee making $50,000 and their spouse making $300,000." They should not have access to the apartments, he said.

The application process will likely open four to six months before the units are ready. Anderson said the university wants to give people as much lead time as possible but doesn't want to promise an opening date until "we know for certain when the building will open."

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado State University breaks ground on workforce housing