INCENTIVES FOR MODULAR HOME BUILDER
Colorado Economic Development Commission addresses affordable housing concerns.
Colorado’s economic development office has brought thousands of jobs to the state this decade and consistently beat out rivals such as Texas and California, thanks to a more powerful set of incentives.
But that has created another problem — a lack of housing for all those newcomers, who have primarily concentrated along the northern Front Range. Metro Denver home prices have shot up nearly 80 percent from the peak before last decade’s housing crash, the most of any large metro in the country, according to Attom Data Solutions.
Not only are more households along the Front Range struggling to get into a home, many rural communities, where land prices are cheaper, can’t attract builders willing to upgrade their housing stock. That leaves them at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting employers and new residents, further adding to the population pressures on metro Denver.
The Colorado Economic Development Commission, in a rare opportunity, tried to address the affordability crisis Wednesday by supporting a new nonprofit that is licensing a modular housing manufacturing method from a benefits corporation in Idaho.
“It is hard to create affordable housing without solutions like this,” said Jeff Kraft, director of business funding and incentives at the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
Project Moon — the code name used by the nonprofit — could receive up to $684,000 in incentives over five years from the state’s Strategic Fund if it creates 171 new jobs paying an average annual wage of $52,874 per year.
Compared with the typical incentive that the state awards, those wages are on the low side. But the nonprofit behind Project Moon has pledged to make hiring unskilled and disadvantaged workers a priority and to locate its new manufacturing plant outside the Denver area.
When the plant is up and running, it should produce 1,000 modular homes and apartment units per year that will be affordable to workers earning a typical wage, officials said.
The commission also approved funding for three other employers under the state’s Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit program at the meeting.
Project Salvo is a Fortune 500 company that has a subsidiary in Colorado with 700 employees and is looking to expand.
It received approval for $4.28 million in incentives if it brings 252 jobs, paying an average annual wage of $109,250, to Boulder versus a location outside the state.
Project Mirage, an Australian technology company, is looking to move its U.S. headquarters out of New Jersey and bring 211 jobs paying an average wage of $86,967 per year to either Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Arizona or New York. The company received $4.1 million in incentives over eight years.
The biggest buzz centered on a Houston startup, Project Yellowstone, which also was a graduate of the first class at the Catapult Outdoor Recreation Accelerator at Western Colorado University.
The company has developed a piece of equipment that allows people to shower or clean gear with less than a gallon of water.
REI has put in a large order for the device, given its usefulness in outdoor recreation. Other markets include the military, natural disaster relief efforts and countries where water is scarce.
Project Yellowstone is looking to hire 98 people at an average wage of $46,357 in Montrose County as it ramps up production. Texas and Nevada are other states under consideration. To help sway the decision, the commission awarded $775,419 in incentives to the company.