440-unit apartment complex planned for Springs' east side

February 28, 2012 2:19 PM

A 440-unit apartment complex is being proposed near Powers Boulevard and Airport Road on Colorado Springs’ east side, the eighth rental project under construction or planned by developers in response to a red-hot multi-family market that has seen rents soar and vacancies fall.

The Westgate at Powers Apartments, proposed northwest of Airport and Troy Hill roads and west of Powers, would be part of a larger development of about 60 acres. The project would include smaller retailers — such as convenience stores, fast food restaurants and dollar stores  — and possibly office buildings for defense contractors.

The project has been proposed by representatives of the California-based Martin List Trust, which oversees property that had been owned by the one-time prominent Springs developer. List, who like many developers ran into financial troubles during the nation’s savings and loan crisis in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, died in September 2010.

As proposed, the Westgate apartments would include 25 two- and three-story buildings, detached garages, a clubhouse/office building, a private play area and open space.

The project is still in the planning stages and needs city regulatory approvals; construction might begin in a year and would be done in phases over possibly three years, said Rich Walker of First Properties Inc., a Springs commercial brokerage. Walker, who has been involved in previous proposals for the site, is working with representatives of the List Trust.

Unlike some luxury, amenity-laden projects that are converted into condominiums, Westgate is envisioned as a permanent rental community, Walker said.

The project would target renters who don’t want to be tied down with a single-family house, as well as a middle-income demographic — retirees, members of the military at nearby Peterson Air Force Base, defense contractors and employees of industrial businesses near the Colorado Springs Airport, Walker said. Rents are envisioned at $1 to $1.10 per square foot for one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, although the units haven’t been designed yet, he said.

Development of the Westgate site — near the busy Powers-Airport intersection and where a Colorado Department of Transportation interchange is planned — would fill residential and shopping needs along the South Powers corridor, Walker said. The project also would be built on a so-called infill site — not part of a suburban area.

“There’s a lot of need in that neighborhood,” he said. “It’s (the project site) not as glamorous to a lot of people, and it’s been overlooked as a result of that. It’s very beautiful to us. We think it’s got some great potential.”

To accommodate future improvements planned at Powers and Airport, a portion of Troy Hill Road will be moved west as it runs into Airport Road, Walker said. The realignment will create a new intersection and improve access for north and southbound motorists on Troy Hill, he said.

Likewise, drainage and flood control improvements are planned along Sand Creek in the area, Walker said.

Retail uses would be developed on the project’s south end, near Airport Road. A concept plan for a portion of the 60-acre site also shows space for office buildings that could attract defense contractors.

Along with the Westgate project, seven other complexes under way or proposed in Fountain, Monument and the Springs would add nearly 2,200 apartments in the Pikes Peak region, which has more than 40,000 units.

Monthly apartment rents averaged about $775 in the fourth quarter of 2011, just short of a record and nearly $40 more that the same period a year earlier, according to the Colorado Division of Housing and the Apartment Association of Southern Colorado. The fourth quarter vacancy rate of 6.7 percent was well below double digit rates of several years ago.

The apartment market has benefited from the area’s housing downturn; thousands of homeowners who have lost properties to foreclosure are now renting, while some buyers can’t qualify for a mortgage because of tougher borrowing requirements. Also, thousands of Army troops have returned to Fort Carson from their deployments or moved here from other installations, and are renting.

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440-unit apartment complex planned for Springs' east side