This past July, the City of Harrisonburg began advertising a development opportunity, soliciting unsealed proposals from development firms to develop, own and operate approximately 200 to 220 units of affordable, income-and-rent-restricted rental housing on 7.825 acres of City owned land on Neff Avenue as shown above.

The City of Harrisonburg plans to potentially give give the land to the developer at no cost in order to support the development of high quality affordable housing.

The City received 12 proposals and last week introduced the potential development partner, Pennrose.

Pennrose describes themselves as a "multifamily, mixed-use, and mixed-income development company" on their website and they have completed developments in 23 states and U.S. territories.  

Per the Pennrose presentation to City Council last week, they shared that they have developed 17,665 units in 225 properties and they shared examples of some of their developments including the following three locations in Virginia and Maryland.

Residences at North Hill (Fairfax, VA)

Lift & Legacy / Legacy Landing (Newport News, VA)

Glenarden Hills (Glenarden, MD)

The next steps for this potential development on Neff Avenue will include contract negotiations (between the developer and the City), contract approval (with a public hearing) and rezoning (another public hearing).  

At last week's meeting the developer did not share any specific plans for a layout of the site or unit type and count.  

The Memorandum from last week's City Council meeting includes a bit more context and links to multiple additional reference materials.

The Powerpoint presentation from the City and Developer has lots of additional details on Pennrose.