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Effective Date:Nov 2, 2026
A joint venture of Gilbane, Harmony Housing Affordable Development, and F7 International Development has broken ground on Chapanoke, a $58 million, 200-unit affordable housing community in Raleigh, North Carolina, with rents reserved for residents earning between 30 and 70 percent of area median income.
The project, reported November 2, layers tax credit equity, private financing, and local public investment, including $7.1 million in gap financing from Wake County and subordinate financing from the City of Raleigh.
Chapanoke adds to a growing pipeline of income-restricted construction in the Research Triangle, one of the fastest-growing housing markets in the Southeast.
Chapanoke will offer a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. All 200 units are income-restricted, serving households across a band from 30 percent of area median income, which in the Raleigh area covers extremely low-income renters, up to 70 percent, a range that captures workers priced out of the region's market-rate new construction.
The development team pairs a national builder with affordable housing specialists. Gilbane brings national construction and development capacity, while Harmony Housing Affordable Development and F7 International Development focus on affordable communities.
The $58 million budget is built from a public-private structure typical of tax credit deals in high-growth markets. Greystone Real Estate Capital is providing Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity. Greystone Housing Impact Investors and Citi Community Capital are supporting the project through construction and permanent financing.
On the public side, Wake County is contributing $7.1 million in gap financing, and the City of Raleigh is providing subordinate public financing. Local gap sources like these have become essential in North Carolina's urban counties, where land and construction costs have outpaced what tax credit equity and first-lien debt alone can support.
Raleigh and Wake County have both put affordable housing near the top of their policy agendas as growth has pushed rents up across the region. Wake County voters have previously approved affordable housing bond measures, and the county's gap financing program is one of the tools it uses to move tax credit projects from award to construction.
The city's subordinate investment fits the same pattern. Raleigh has layered local funds into income-restricted developments to secure deeper affordability and longer restriction periods than federal programs alone require.
Chapanoke's income banding, reaching down to 30 percent of area median income, is notable. Units at that level are the hardest to finance and the most needed, and they generally require exactly the kind of local subordinate capital this deal assembled.
Greystone appears on both sides of the capital stack, with its real estate capital arm supplying tax credit equity and its housing impact investment arm participating in the financing. Citi Community Capital, one of the most active lenders in affordable housing, rounds out the private financing.
The combination of a national tax credit syndicator, a major community development lender, and county and city gap funding reflects the standard architecture of large affordable new construction in 2026: federal credits do the heavy lifting, but local money closes the deal.
Affordable housing finance in high-growth Sun Belt markets has become an exercise in layering. Federal 9 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, awarded competitively by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, anchor most new income-restricted construction in the state, but credits alone rarely cover the full cost of building in markets where land prices have climbed with population growth.
That is where the local layer comes in. Wake County's $7.1 million in gap financing and Raleigh's subordinate investment fill the space between what the tax credit equity and conventional debt can support and what the project actually costs. Without that layer, deals either shrink, lose their deepest affordability units, or stall entirely.
The structure also spreads risk. Greystone Housing Impact Investors and Citi Community Capital bring construction and permanent debt capacity, while the public subordinate money sits behind the first-lien lenders, taking the softest position in the stack to make the numbers work.
The 30 to 70 percent AMI band matters because it spans the two hardest segments to serve. At the top, households around 60 to 70 percent of area median income are the traditional tax credit constituency, workers in service, education, health care, and public sector jobs who cannot afford new market-rate apartments but earn too much for the deepest subsidy programs.
At the bottom, units at 30 percent of AMI serve extremely low-income households, including seniors and people with disabilities on fixed incomes. Those units almost never pencil without subordinate public capital, which is what the county and city contributions make possible here.
The unit mix, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, signals a project designed for a range of household sizes rather than studios aimed at single adults, consistent with the family housing focus of most competitive tax credit awards in North Carolina.
Chapanoke is one piece of a broader build-out. Wake County and its municipalities have assembled a toolkit of bonds, gap loans, and land strategies to expand income-restricted housing, and the City of Raleigh has paired that financing with zoning and land use changes intended to open more sites to multifamily construction.
The November 3 ballot extends that pattern. Raleigh voters are deciding a city housing bond measure today, and Charlotte voters face a similar question, part of a statewide run of local housing bond campaigns as North Carolina's metros confront the cost of their own growth.
Construction timelines on tax credit deals of this size typically run 18 to 24 months from groundbreaking to first move-ins, which would put Chapanoke's lease-up in the 2028 window. The partners have not announced a completion date, and the schedule will depend on the usual variables: labor, materials, and weather.
The deeper question is replicability. Wake County's gap financing program has now backed multiple tax credit deals, and county officials have framed it as a standing tool rather than a one-off. Whether the model scales depends on continued bond capacity and the county's willingness to keep taking the softest position in increasingly expensive deals.
For Gilbane, the joint venture extends a strategy of pairing national construction scale with local affordable housing expertise. Large builders have moved deeper into the affordable segment as conventional multifamily starts have cooled, attracted by the steadier pipeline that tax credit awards provide.
Harmony Housing Affordable Development and F7 International Development bring the specialized side: navigating credit allocations, compliance layering, and the public funding relationships that affordable deals require. The three-way structure, national builder plus affordable specialists, has become a common template for scaling income-restricted production.
Raleigh's pipeline suggests the bet is well placed. The region's job growth continues to draw new residents, rents in newer market-rate communities have climbed well beyond what the 30 to 70 percent AMI band can pay, and local officials have shown sustained willingness to put public money into closing that gap.
Chapanoke will test all three partners at scale: 200 fully income-restricted units is a substantial single-site commitment in a market where construction costs remain elevated and every layer of the financing stack has to perform on schedule.
There is also a state-level dimension. North Carolina's housing finance agency allocates the credits that anchor deals like Chapanoke, and demand for those credits has consistently outstripped supply. Each groundbreaking represents a deal that survived a competitive allocation round, assembled its local match, and held its financing together through closing, a sequence that kills many more projects than it produces, and one that local officials cite when arguing for keeping gap funding in place year after year.
For the residents who will eventually live at Chapanoke, the math is simpler: 200 apartments with rents set below what the surrounding market charges, in one of the state's strongest job markets, within reach of the employment centers driving Raleigh's growth.
County officials have framed investments like the Chapanoke gap loan as infrastructure spending in another form: housing near jobs functions like roads and transit in keeping the regional economy working. That framing has helped sustain political support for affordable housing spending even as budgets tighten.
Site work and vertical construction on tax credit deals are also closely watched by the syndicators and lenders in the stack, whose disbursement schedules tie funding to construction milestones. A smooth start matters for the whole capital structure.
Construction is now underway. Lease-up will show how quickly income-restricted units at the 30 to 70 percent AMI band are absorbed in Raleigh's market, where waiting lists for affordable units have grown alongside the region's population.
For Wake County, Chapanoke is also a test of its gap financing model at scale. If the project delivers on schedule and budget, it strengthens the case for the county's continued investment in the subsidy layer that makes deep affordability work in tax credit deals.
The project will also be one to watch as Raleigh voters weigh housing bond measures on today's ballot, part of a broader November 3 vote on housing investment across North Carolina and the country.
Gilbane, Harmony Housing Affordable Development, and F7 International Development have broken ground on Chapanoke, a $58 million, 200-unit affordable housing community in Raleigh.
All 200 units are income-restricted for residents earning 30 to 70 percent of area median income, with a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom floor plans.
Greystone Real Estate Capital is providing LIHTC equity, while Greystone Housing Impact Investors and Citi Community Capital are backing construction and permanent financing.
Wake County is contributing $7.1 million in gap financing and the City of Raleigh is providing subordinate public financing.
The groundbreaking was reported November 2, as Raleigh voters also weigh a city housing bond measure on the November 3 ballot.
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