Berkadia’s 4Q pipeline report:
Downtown
Lease-up: 791
Under construction: 3218
ITB outside downtown
Lease-up: 395
Under construction: 1548
Cary & West Raleigh
Lease-up: 1294
Under construction: 5199
Wake County total
Lease-up: 9093
Under construction: 19,906
I’ve had some arguments with Chuck about housing in the past; Chuck’s lived experience has been in slow-growing, middle-income Brainerd, so sometimes his understanding of how markets work aren’t applicable to fast-growing, high-income places like Raleigh. He’s learned a lot from having Daniel Herriges on board, so I’m more excited about that half of the byline.
My mind is boggled by this: money buys things. “I don’t really need $5, I need a cup of coffee,” said nobody, ever.
There’s basically free federal money that will pay ~1/3 of the cost for subsidized housing construction. The problem with it is that it only pays for 1/3, and someone needs to come up with the rest, because cheap rents won’t pay those bills. But what if the city suddenly had $5.65M? That could be the city’s contribution for 1/3 of the cost, and the last 1/3 can be supported by rents (if it’s mixed-income), housing choice vouchers, or assorted subsidies (e.g., supportive housing, historic tax credits, various specialized federal programs, donated land, etc.). So $5.65M in cash can leverage $17M in total money to create maybe 85 affordable units off-site.
So instead of 308 market-rate units + 85 affordable units, they get… nothing, because city council members don’t understand that cash is gloriously fungible.
A better project team would’ve partnered with a subsidized-housing developer to offer the tower + the offsite units. But alas.