Buckingham affordable apartments set for leasing in the fall

Affordable housing units at the former Red Cross site in Buckingham will be available to lease starting this fall, the developer says.

The nonprofit developer Wesley Housing Development Corporation announced Thursday (July 21) it is set to lease all 97 units in the building, now called The Cadence. Units at the new apartment building at 4333 Arlington Blvd will range from studios to three bedrooms.

A leasing office is set up at 311 N. Glebe Road, where the property management team can meet with prospective residents, according to a press release. The apartment building is open to households with an income at or below 70% of the median family income, meaning it is open to families of four that earn up to about $80,000 a year.

The building is part of a complex that also includes 19 market-rate townhomes nearby.

Wesley Housing received $11 million in local and federal funding for The Cadence. The project has a total development budget of over $46 million, according to the developer’s website, and replaced “an underused parking lot, two single family houses and a vacant office building.”

There had been opposition to the apartment complex from community members in the past, who believed Buckingham has an outsized concentration of affordable housing. However, Wesley Housing believed the new units would be beneficial to their tenants.

“We can’t wait to serve the community with brand new quality, affordable apartments, and look forward to building up the lives of those will call these communities home in the coming months,” Lisa Davis, vice president of Wesley Property Management, said in the press release.

In addition to The Cadence, Wesley Housing plans to open leasing for three other Northern Virginia complexes later this year. A total of 367 housing units will be available to lease across the four complexes: The Cadence, The Waypoint at Fairlington in Alexandria, Senseny Place in Winchester, and The Arden in Fairfax County.

Wesley Housing’s property management wing expects to see a 20% increase in the number of housing units managed and to serve approximately 1,200 more people in the coming six months, according to the press release.