The City of Sioux Falls is expanding affordable housing with a brand new, multi-building apartment complex. Wednesday afternoon, city officials announced the $8 million dollar facility.
The new affordable housing project proposed for Sioux Falls’ southwest side includes 56 apartments. Half are two-bedroom units; the other half are three bedroom apartments.
"The rent levels for this project will range from $369 on the low end to $825 a month on the high end," Director of Community Development for Sioux Falls Darrin Smith says.
Grandview, LLC is building the complex. Kenny Dunlap says units like these are often much more costly.
"On the open market, you’d be looking at rents anywhere probably in the neighborhood of $900 to $1200 a month. That’s not affordable to everybody," Dunlap says. "We happen to be in a market right now where our rental market is rather tight, and we look at this as an opportunity to provide more housing for more people."
The project aims at providing affordable housing for people at or below 60 percent of the poverty line. For a family of four, that’s a maximum yearly household income of $43,300.
Builders want to break ground on the Westwood Apartment complex this fall. Smith says some cities concentrate affordable housing in the core of town, but he says that’s often a mistake.
"Different parts of our community, and you can say this about a lot of cities, have unique features and qualities – the diversity and so forth. For me, again, on the west side, what I really like about this is the ability for these folks to live in an area that, again, has new schools for the kids, has new parks. There’s a new library out there, the family wellness center," Smith says.
The city of Sioux Falls supports the multi-million dollar project in the form of a $350,000 dollar loan to Grandview, LLC. The company pays the city back over 32 years.Smith says the city has plans for more affordable housing projects in coming years.
View the proposed layout for Westwood Apartments.