A long-vacant 1.76-acre lot at 2055 North Zaragoza Road in East El Paso is about to get a new neighbor: a 41-unit apartment complex called Eastside Crossings, built across two separate buildings on land that currently sits empty next to a Crunch Fitness gym.
The $6.9 million project comes from Housing Opportunity Management Enterprises, more commonly known as HOME, according to city permit records cited by the El Paso Times. Robert Garland III is listed as the applicant on the project, working with local firm Wright and Dalbin Architects. The El Paso Times notes the city's permit page does not list a contractor for the job.
Eastside Crossings will rise on a corridor that has already drawn heavy commercial and residential investment. The El Paso Times reports the site sits near Academy Sports and Outdoors, Yum Yum Sushi, Lin's Grand Buffet, and Sprouts, placing new income-restricted units directly inside a stretch of East El Paso dominated by market-rate retail and dining. Just up the road, the 225-unit Desert Commons complex at 2801 North Zaragoza Road won a 2024 CoStar Impact Award as a major local multi-family investment, according to CoStar News, underscoring how quickly this part of the corridor has grown.
What the Buildings Will Look Like
Per city plans described by the El Paso Times, the two Eastside Crossings buildings will use concrete slab-on-grade construction with lumber framing. Exteriors will combine cement board, manufacturer-supplied stone veneer, stucco finishes, and asphalt shingle roofing, while interiors are set to include painted drywall, luxury vinyl tile throughout, and ceramic tile in the bathrooms. Site work will cover grading and drainage, walkways, landscaping and irrigation, and parking, the outlet reports.
Wright and Dalbin Architects, the El Paso firm tied to applicant Robert Garland III on this project, has operated since 1986 and has designed prominent local work including UTEP's Rubin Center and the eco-friendly County Ysleta Annex, according to the firm's own team page. Principal Frederic Dalbin also co-founded Eco El Paso to advance sustainable construction regionally, per that same source.
A Housing Authority Built to Scale Up Fast
HOME, formerly the Housing Authority of El Paso, was established in 1938 and is the 14th largest public housing authority in the nation, per city permit documentation referenced by the El Paso Times. The agency now operates 99 communities and provides homes to more than 52,000 residents, and it has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as a high performer in the public housing and housing choice voucher programs. It has also collected numerous awards of merit and one award of excellence from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials.
That scale traces back to a major restructuring: HOME pioneered Texas's largest Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion when HUD approved shifting its entire original 6,100-unit public housing portfolio into long-term project-based rental assistance contracts, a shift anchored by a $241 million first phase completed in 2017, according to Hunt Capital Partners. That conversion helped the agency address a nationwide public housing capital repair backlog and set the stage for its current growth ambitions.
Those ambitions are considerable. S&P Global Ratings reported in July that HOME adopted a growth strategy aiming to add 1,200 affordable housing units annually through acquisitions and new developments, seeking to expand its portfolio beyond its existing 13,000 units in El Paso. The agency has also moved beyond city limits: in 2025, it established a tax-exempt nonprofit affiliate called Sixteenth Floor Residential Inc. to pursue housing investments outside El Paso, including a $61.2 million apartment complex acquisition in South Carolina in June, as reported by Multi-Housing News.
Why Demand Keeps Climbing in El Paso
The push to build more units reflects mounting local pressure. HUD data analyzed by USAFacts found that roughly 29,600 people lived in federally subsidized housing in El Paso County in 2025 — about 3.4% of the county's population, nearly double the statewide Texas average of 1.8%. The average length of stay in local subsidized units reached eight years and five months that same year, per the same analysis.
Supply has not kept pace. HUD market analysis cited in the City of El Paso's 2025–2029 Consolidated Plan projected demand for 2,300 new rental units in the city between 2022 and 2025, but only 740 rental units were under construction at the start of that forecast period. An El Paso Housing Needs Assessment presented in August 2025 found that local home prices and rental rates spiked sharply after 2020, rising significantly faster than wages, household incomes, and inflation — a squeeze the assessment found hit low-income residents hardest.
To qualify for HOME's voucher assistance, households must earn under 80% of the area median income, roughly $39,000 a year for a family of four, though the agency reports most of its clients fall into the extremely low-income bracket. Wait times for assistance run two to four years, and central voucher waiting lists have remained closed for long stretches due to demand, according to the agency.
HOME's roots in El Paso go back to February 1938, when it built the city's first public housing complex, Alamito, in Segundo Barrio between 1938 and 1940 with 307 units. That original complex was later rebuilt through a $58 million revitalization funded in part by a $20 million HUD HOPE VI grant. Nearly nine decades later, the 41 units planned for Eastside Crossings represent a far smaller addition, but one arriving squarely in the kind of fast-growing, high-demand corridor the agency's current expansion strategy is built to target.
