Affordable apartments axed in Meridian. What killed the deal and what now?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Centrepoint project cancellation eliminates 239 planned affordable units in Meridian.
- Competitive tax credits and loss of key HUD eligibility created unsustainable risks.
- Land plans now revert to 213 market-rate apartments approved in 2022.
An affordable-housing development anticipated to be “pivotal” in meeting housing needs in Meridian has been canceled and has reverted to previously approved plans for market-rate apartments.
The planned development’s termination, which developers say was caused by a complex array of financial factors, constitutes a blow to housing affordability in the region, according to a Boise-area homelessness nonprofit that supported the proposal.
The development, called Centrepoint Apartments, was expected to bring 239 affordable “workforce” apartments to the southwest corner of Eagle and Ustick roads. The one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments were designated for people who earn no more than 80% of the median income in the area, according to Chase Huber, intermountain development manager for DevCo, which was supposed to head up the development.
U.S. Census Bureau data from 2023 puts Meridian’s median household income at just over $100,000. Average rent in the city is almost $1,500 a month, according to Apartment List.
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Approved by the Meridian City Council in November, Centrepoint was expected to be the city’s second — and largest— affordable-housing complex in more than 20 years. At the time, it was praised by St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus health systems for helping address housing needs in the region. In a letter of support, Rebecca Lemmons, regional director of community health and well-being at Saint Alphonsus, said Centrepoint was a “pivotal development … poised to impact the housing landscape in Meridian significantly.”
In order to charge below-market rates, Huber told the Idaho Statesman by phone, DevCo planned to take advantage of a low-income housing tax credit issued by the U.S. Treasury Department and awarded to developments in the state by the Idaho Housing and Finance Association. The housing association is an independent nonprofit created by the Legislature and tasked with allocating these credits.
Huber said DevCo hoped to apply for a 4% tax credit but made the “very difficult decision” to walk away after considering “a number of different risk components.”
“You can’t pinpoint it on one thing in particular,” Huber said. “These projects are complicated.”
Number of factors made development too ‘risky’
One factor Huber identified was the fact that this year, for the first time in Idaho, the 4% tax credits were “competitive,” meaning that more developers applied for them than the housing association could award. Huber refers to this pot of applications as “4% bond projects” because they rely on private-activity bonds from Congress.
“Idaho entered into its first year where those tax-exempt bonds became competitive, and (the housing association) went through a period of time where they reassessed how they wanted to allocate that resource,” Huber said.
Huber said Centrepoint, because it was a relatively large development, would have required a substantial allocation. “You are asking for more of that limited resource, which puts a big strain on IHFA to allocate that much of that resource to one project, where there’s needs all across the state,” he said.
A second mechanism involved in funding affordable-housing developments, Huber said, is called a “basis boost” — an increase in the amount of tax credits that a development is eligible for based on where it is located. If a development falls within a “difficult-to-develop area,” determined each year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, it gets that eligibility “boost.”
Getting that designation is so crucial for financing an affordable housing development, Huber said, that it’s essentially worth more than the value of the land itself. “We could effectively get the land for free, and it wouldn’t make up the difference for not being in this section of the map,” he said.
And when HUD’s map for the upcoming year was published in September, DevCo learned that Centrepoint would no longer get that boost. The developer managed to secure a 700-day extension from HUD, but would have had to secure all financing and permits within that period.
“That was a huge risk … because nothing is guaranteed,” he said, including whether the housing association would award the tax credit in 700 days or at all.
Further complicating that timeline was the fact that DevCo didn’t own the land for Centrepoint. Huber said DevCo had an agreement to buy the land but that the owner wanted DevCo to “close on the land almost immediately after we got through that City Council hearing … . Traditionally, we don’t close on the land until we have the financing in place.”
Plus, Huber said, the developer was already operating on slightly slimmer margins than hoped for because it reduced its proposal from 295 to 239 units in order to get a blessing from the City Council.
“At the end of the day … it’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just a culmination of events that happened that pushed the risk-profile of the project above what we were comfortable moving forward with,” he said.
Huber said the project was a tough call but the combination of circumstances made it so that “If it did not work out as we were hoping, the ramifications for us as a developer would have been pretty catastrophic.”
A ‘big hit’ to affordability
According to Evan Stewart, the acting executive director of Boise homelessness nonprofit Jesse Tree, Centrepoint’s cancellation is a “big hit for the community” in terms of housing affordability.
“That’s a tough one,” he said. “Rent’s very high. We’re seeing people struggling, every day, so many people who are reaching out who are struggling to pay rent. It shot up quite a bit in the last couple of years, about 40%.”
As rents in the Treasure Valley have increased and the region has grown, evictions have skyrocketed, the nonprofit reports. In the Boise area, evictions have tripled since 2020, reaching 1,615 eviction dispositions in Ada County and 605 in Canyon County in 2024, according to a Jesse Tree report. Twice as many families applied for the nonprofit’s rental assistance last year as did in 2020.
“We need a lot more affordable housing units in the community … and especially Meridian, where prices are, I would say, much higher than many of the other (cities) in the Treasure Valley,” Stewart said. “Hopefully they can pivot and continue to try to do some more affordable-housing building moving forward.”
According to previous Statesman reporting, Idaho is one of three states in the country with no state funding source for affordable housing. Earlier this year, Gov. Brad Little asked the Legislature to authorize $15 million for workforce housing development, but the request was denied.
Benjamin Cushman, a communications coordinator at the housing association, told the Statesman that the only state funding dedicated to affordable housing was approved in 2022 using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. All of that funding was committed by 2023, Cushman said in an email.
This leaves developers reliant on federal tax credits, including the 4% credits, which Cushman said are challenging for developers to make pencil out, because more outside funding is needed. Another low-income tax credit, a 9% credit, provides a larger subsidy but has historically been more competitive in Idaho.
Still, Huber said DevCo hopes to find other opportunities to keep building affordable housing in the region.
The Washington-based company recently opened 112 affordable apartments on the Boise Bench and plans to build another 152 in Caldwell. Huber said DevCo applied for and was awarded a 4% credit in both cases, and that the developer hopes to break ground on the Caldwell apartments in July.
“Our goal is to build affordable housing in the Treasure Valley for a long time,” Huber said.
Plans for market-rate apartments back on
With DevCo’s entitlements for Centrepoint terminated, the land slated for the development will revert to earlier-entitled plans for 213 market-rate apartments, according to Bill Parsons, a Meridian planning supervisor. Those plans were approved in 2022.
In March, Mike Maffia of MGM Meridian applied to have the previous development agreement on the property split up so that the two parcels could be developed independently.
“There are currently two interested parties in purchasing the property,” Parsons told the Statesman in an email. “Each is seeking to establish its own separate development agreement with the City. This is the primary reason for the applicant’s request to amend the existing agreement.”
That request is scheduled to be considered by the City Council in a public hearing on June 3.
Huber said DevCo is not involved in future plans for that property.
This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
