Affordable Housing Due Diligence for High Impact Sites

KB Advisory Group, working as a subconsultant to Lord Aeck Sargent (LAS), helped the City of Asheville determine the feasibility of three high-impact sites for mixed-use, mixed-income development.

The City of Asheville sought to use City-owned land for the development of affordable and mixed-income housing and is committed to promoting community participation and ensuring openness and transparency in the development process. The City will either lease the land or sell it to a partner developer for a new mixed-income, mixed-use community.

KB Advisory Group’s role in the project was four-fold:

1. KB Advisory Group performed an initial real estate market analysis and prepared a set of findings that included a summary of the key demographic and economic factors driving real estate demand in the market over the next five years. The analysis led to the development of estimates of the future demand at the subject site for market-rate and affordable multifamily residential and commercial uses.
2. Tested site-specific development concepts that LAS developed against the market assessment regarding unit mixes, target markets, competitive positioning, pricing, and absorption for market rate and affordable rental residential components and possible ancillary mixed-use development.
3. Created detailed development pro formas for each site concept that incorporated the work from the previous tasks and determined the likely financial parameters of the development in terms of potential financial returns from each. Each pro forma allowed for numerous alternative financing and development scenarios for consideration.
4. Authored an RFQ to attract developers for the most likely site in the near-term. KB Advisory Group will continue to work with the City during the selection process.