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WASHINGTON (October 14, 2020) –The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Housing has announced six winning residential projects for the 2020 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award, during ULI’s Virtual Fall Meeting.

The winners this year have been categorized in two groups by development size. The winners in the large-scale (100 units or more) developments group are:

• Arroyo Village, Denver, Colorado: a first-of-its-kind project in Colorado that encompasses a continuum of care for people experiencing housing instability that includes a homeless shelter of 60 beds, 35 one-bedroom apartments for permanent supportive housing and 95 affordable apartments under one roof. The project is thoughtfully designed for the residents, including the use of Trauma-Informed Design for the permanent supportive housing, which centers on the belief that spaces should be designed for healing, especially as it relates to mental health;
• Montgomery Mill, Windsor Locks, Connecticut: an adaptive reuse of a historic, long-vacant mill building in downtown Windsor Locks, CT that has been transformed into 160 units of mixed-income housing and is a catalyst to a broader revitalization effort in Windsor Locks’ downtown. The project required both grit and complex financing to rehabilitate the dilapidated building and restore it as listed on the National Register of Historic Places, while also designing it to withstand flooding as it is located in a floodplain;
• Red Cedar Apartments, Seattle, Washington: a development which adds 119 affordable apartment homes to the redeveloped Yesler Terrace site. The building was designed to accommodate large families with three and four-bedroom apartments. To boost Red Cedar as a center of neighborly connections and activities, the building includes a community engagement hub, large meeting spaces, and service provider space near streetcar, bus lines, and the regional light rail; and
• The Lofts on Arthington, Chicago, Illinois: a historic preservation adaptive reuse of one of the original Sears, Roebuck & Co. buildings, located in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, IL that turned a blighted structured into 181 affordable homes for over 400 residents, half of whom are children;

The winner in the small-scale (under 100 units) group is:

• Beach Plum Village, Nantucket Island, Nantucket, Massachusetts: a new, residential community of 40 single-family cottages with affordable homes that are permanently restricted at moderate prices and fully integrated with high-end market rate homes. As an ultra-expensive community, affordable housing is a challenge for the year-round residents and workforce critical to Nantucket’s economy. Beach Plum Village not only adds much-needed affordable housing but has made a significant impact in reducing community opposition to affordable housing.

The jury also recognized Nesika Illahee in Portland, Oregon, with a Chairman’s Award, a recognition bestowed on an especially creative project designed to address a unique affordable housing challenge. Nesika Illahee is a three-story wood-framed building comprised of 59 apartments: 13 studio, 30 one-bedroom, nine two-bedroom, and seven three-bedroom apartments. The development team combined Indian Housing Block Grant funds and Low Income Housing Tax Credits that enable the project to focus on the acute needs of the Native Community, an unacknowledged, underserved and underrepresented population, by including 20 apartments reserved for Native Americans along with culturally specific services and medical, dental, and behavioral health care for all residents.

“Congratulations to all of this year’s Kemp Award winners,” said ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing executive director Christopher Ptomey. “These winners emerged from a record number of applicants and represent unique, yet replicable, solutions to a number of difficult housing challenges, including meeting housing and other basic support needs of severely underserved populations and creating residential adaptive re-uses for historic spaces.”

Other finalists for the 2020 Kemp Award were Ashley Union Station, Denver, Colorado; HearthSide Club Lafayette, Fayetteville, Georgia;; the Village on Sage Street, Reno, Nevada; the Wharf Phase 1, Washington, D.C.; 7^th and Witmer apartments, Los Angeles, California; and Encanto Village, San Diego, California.

ULI established the Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award in 2008, naming the award in memory of Jack Kemp, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development who had served as a Terwilliger Center national advisory board member. The award is given annually to affordable and workforce housing developments that represent outstanding achievements in several areas, including affordability, innovative financing and building technologies, proximity to employment centers and transportation hubs, quality of design, and involvement of public/private partnerships. Developments competing for the Kemp Award may be fully affordable, with all units designated for low- to moderate-income residents; or they may contain a mix of affordable and market-rate units.

ULI Terwilliger Center founder Ron Terwilliger, chairman, Terwilliger Pappas Multifamily Partners, chaired the jury. In addition, this year’s other jury members are Alan George, executive vice president, Equity Residential, Chicago, Illinois; Nina Janopaul, president and chief executive officer, Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, Arlington, Virginia; Mick Nelson, founder and chief executive officer, Nelson Community Partners, Nashville, Tennessee; Pam Patenaude, former deputy secretary, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Vienna, Virginia; Philip Payne, co-founder and chairman, the Lotus Campaign, Charlotte, North Carolina; Jonathan Rose, president, Jonathan Rose Companies, New York, New York; Stacy Silber, principal, Lerch, Early & Brewer, Bethesda, Maryland; Margaret Wylde, chief executive officer, ProMatura Group LLC, Oxford, Mississippi; and Bob Youngentob, president, EYA, Bethesda, Maryland.

NOTE TO REPORTERS AND EDITORS: Courtesy images of the Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award winners and finalists are provided by ULI upon request for use by members of the press.  For more details on the awards and previous winners, visit the Jack Kemp Award webpage. For interested applicants, the 2021 Kemp Awards application window opens soon. Please visit uli.org/Kemp for more information.

About the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing

The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing conducts research, performs analysis, provides expert advice, and develops best practice recommendations that reflect the residential land use and development priorities of ULI members in all residential product types, with special attention to workforce and affordable housing. The center was established in 2007 with a gift from longtime member and former ULI chairman J. Ronald Terwilliger.