A development company owned partly by Spokane general contractor Doric Creager is proposing to develop and construct a $10 million to $12 million affordable housing project in Twisp, Wash., for the Housing Authority of Okanogan County.

The complex, which would be called Methow Riverwalk, would be constructed on part of a seven-acre parcel on the Methow River near the corner of Twisp and Methow avenues, in Twisp, says Creager, president and owner of Doric Inc. here. The development company, Methow Riverwalk LLC, would construct between 35 and 40 units in the project, called Methow Riverwalk, he says. The Okanogan County Housing Authority would own the complex.

"We are looking at that with them," says Claudia Clausnitzer, executive director of the authority, which has its offices in Okanogan, Wash. "They're going to give us a presentation in May. It would be a turnkey type of project," in which the developer would finance and complete the project, and the housing authority would then buy it, although the authority hasn't approved the project or agreed to acquire it yet, Clausnitzer says.

"We have no interest in being property managers," Creager says.

Both Clausnitzer and Creager say that because out-of-county residents have bought up much of the property in the Methow Valley for second homes, the valley, located in northcentral Washington, suffers from a lack of rental housing for people who work there.

"It slowly makes the price of local real estate unaffordable for the local work force," says Creager, who owns a second home in the valley. Because of that, some employees of local businesses have been making long commutes from Pateros, Wenatchee, Okanogan, and other communities to their jobs in Twisp, Winthrop, and elsewhere in the Methow Valley, he says. In other isolated resort communities, such as Sun Valley and Sandpoint, Idaho, local residents have been forced out of rental housing by high prices Creager says.

Clausnitzer says, "There's a need for housing for seniors who, for retirement purposes or whatever reason, have sold their properties and want to downsize." She says that Creager and his partners brought the Methow Riverwalk proposal to the housing authority, which hadn't put out a request for such proposals. The authority's board of directors wants to see a marketing study that would substantiate the need for the housing units among workers and senior citizens in the valley, Clausnitzer says. It, and not the county commissioners, would decide whether to go ahead with the project, she says.

"This is kind of out of the box for us," Clausnitzer says. "All of our other affordable housing is housing with subsidies." Those other properties include a 17-unit senior disabled apartment complex adjacent to the proposed Methow Riverwalk site; a 24-unit apartment development in Okanogan that has 10 state-subsidized units; and a 6-unit development in Omak, Wash., for farm workers. The authority is acquiring 24 additional units of farm-worker housing in Brewster, Wash., she says.

Creager says Methow Riverwalk LLC has all but completed a market study for the project, and if the authority approves the project, the company would shop for financing to construct it. He believes that a lender would do its own market study before approving financing. He projects that construction could begin in the spring next year. He says it's believed that the project would qualify for Build America Bonds under an Obama administration program if the housing authority were to approve the project and seek financing to buy it after it's completed.

Creager is a partner in Methow Riverwalk LLC with architect Tom Lenchek, of Balance Associates, Architects, a Seattle firm with an office in Winthrop, and Creager's brother, Kurt, a Spokane native. Kurt Creager worked for the Vancouver Housing Authority, in Vancouver, Wash., for 25 years and now splits time between Vancouver and Phoenix, where he is a part-time instructor at the University of Arizona, Doric Creager says. Kurt Creager also is an affordable-housing consultant for a number of communities through his company, Urbanist Solutions LLC.

Some of the living units at Methow Riverwalk would be rented at market rates, and some would be rented at subsidized rates, although no breakdown is available yet on how many units would be subsidized, Creager says.

Lenchek says in a letter submitted to the Okanogan County Housing Authority last year that demand just from the employees of the valley's three biggest employers, Sun Mountain Lodge, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Methow Valley School District, would be sufficient to take up all of the subsidized rental units.

"The most common refrain among all parties surveyed is that there is exceptionally limited rental housing stock in the valley, affordable or not," the letter says. "Rocklynn Culp, Winthrop town planner, described the lack of monthly rentals as a 'crisis' for local businesses, especially those with seasonal employees." The project would be two blocks from Twisp's business district and three blocks from U.S. 20, the major highway through the valley.