Terwilliger Place: Providing Affordable Housing for Veterans

Terwilliger Place became Virginia’s largest affordable housing development for veterans when it opened its doors in September 2022. This development offers 160 units of affordable housing, with half of those units set aside for veterans.

The Arlington, Virginia complex is billed as the first Housing Credit project in the state with a leasing preference for veterans.

The development of Terwilliger Place comes as the result of a longstanding relationship between Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) and Capital One. Together, the two organizations have joined forces to bring nearly 450 affordable housing units to the Washington, D.C.-area since 2011.

Capital One supported the nearly $80 million development’s construction by originating $37 million through a Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity investment. The bank also provided $25 million in construction debt and $70,000 in pre-development grants.

Additionally, the ground-floor will serve as space for American Legion Post 139 — a chapter of the largest wartime veterans service organization in the U.S — which called the site of Terwilliger Place home before selecting APAH to redevelop their site with both a new Legion Post and affordable housing.

“When young Americans sign up to serve in the military, we make them a promise,” U.S. Secretary of Veteran Affairs Denis McDonough said while speaking at Terwilliger Place’s grand opening ceremony. “If you fight for us, we’ll fight for you. Our nation makes that promise but it’s the job of all Americans to keep that promise. No veteran should be homeless in the country they fought to defend, and the development of Terwilliger Place can be a successful blueprint to help increase the stock of housing dedicated to vets and their families and provide more opportunities for those who have served.”

The Pressing Need for Affordable Housing Nationwide

Affordable housing, the situation in which a household spends no more than 30 percent of their income on housing, has continued to become increasingly scarce across the U.S.

Addressing the affordable housing crisis requires both new construction and housing preservation, and innovative financing is essential to help bring these developments to life.

The development of Terwilliger Place was the result of bringing that process to life in the Washington, D.C.-area — a region that currently stands an estimated 264,000 low-cost housing units short of demand.

“At the start of this project, we looked at the need for affordable housing for veterans and were perplexed how Washington, D.C.-area, the home of the Pentagon, the Arlington National Cemetery and the joint base at Fort Myers for the Army and the Marines could be pricing out veterans,” says Carmen Romero, President and Chief Executive Officer at APAH. “When you work on a project of this scale, it is so important to work with a trusted partner like Capital One. Their team helped us structure the transaction and selected the National Equity Fund, which has a lot of veterans housing expertise nationally, as their syndicator to help remedy this tremendous need in the community.”

The community will serve households earning between 30-80 percent of area median income and will also offer veteran-focused resident services and programming in its community spaces.

"Capital One has funded developments that extend across the DMV – from Mount Vernon Triangle to Anacostia to Alexandria and Reston,” says Ed Delany, Senior Capital Officer for the Mid-Atlantic region of Capital One Bank's Community Finance team. “We have seen firsthand how the LIHTC program can effectively bring affordable housing to market, and how the government and the private sector can successfully partner to reach a common goal. That success includes the collaborative effort that made Terwilliger Place a reality and created Virginia's largest affordable housing project for veterans."

Capital One’s Efforts to Support Affordable Housing

Supporting the construction of Terwilliger Place is the latest example of Capital One’s ample experience working alongside organizations that leverage the LIHTC program and supporting the construction of affordable housing for veterans.

Capital One’s Community Finance team, which specializes in affordable housing and LIHTC transactions, financed the construction of Terwilliger Place.

Since 2007, it has originated more than $16 billion in debt and equity investments and has seen first-hand the effectiveness of this program in bringing affordable housing to market — having benefited over 154,000 households.

The Community Finance team’s work is part of Capital One’s comprehensive array of financing solutions for property owners and developers nationwide, including balance sheet and agency lending. In 2021, Capital One reported over $9.3 billion in community development loans, most of which supported multifamily affordable housing.