Today the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Housing announced the finalists of this year’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award competition, a program that honors developments that ensure housing affordability for people with a range of incomes. The Warehouse Artist Lofts project in Sacramento was 1 in 5 nationwide finalists selected.  The winner will be announced later this year during a general session at the 2015 ULI Fall Meeting in San Francisco.

The finalists were selected by a jury of nationally renowned housing experts, who judged submissions based on each project’s ability to meet affordable and workforce housing needs in their communities. The award is provided to developments in which all or a portion of the units are affordable to households earning less than 120 percent of area median income (AMI), or mixed-income developments serving households both above and below 60 percent of AMI.

The 2015 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award finalists are as follows:

Warehouse Artist Lofts, Sacramento, California—Warehouse Artist Lofts (WAL) is a mixed-use, mixed-income community for artists, located in downtown Sacramento’s R Street Corridor Special Planning District, a former industrial and railroad corridor.

Charlesview Residences and Town Homes at Brighton Mills, Brighton, Massachusetts;

Chambers Lofts, Trenton, New Jersey;

BASE Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington;

1400 Mission, San Francisco, California.

ULI established the Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award in 2008, naming it in memory of Jack Kemp, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and ULI 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, involvement of public/private partnerships, and replicability of the development, among other criteria.

According to jury member Paul Freitag, managing director, Jonathan Rose Co., “The Kemp Awards are a great way for ULI to reward and share best practices in meeting affordable and workforce housing needs through creating mixed-income, vibrant communities.”

In addition to Freitag, members of the Jack Kemp Award jury include Dara Kovel, vice president of multifamily, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority; Linda Mandolini, president, Eden Housing; Patrick Nash, managing director, JP Morgan; and Dionne Nelson, principal and chief executive officer, Laurel Street Residential.