A patch of land just a block off Main Street in Frisco is now the site of Galena Apartments, a 54-unit, all-electric workforce-housing development that broke ground for essential workers and their families. The project is designed for households earning up to 120% of the area median income, arriving as Summit County grapples with rents and home prices that have climbed sharply in recent years.
The groundbreaking took place on July 24, 2025, according to ccdmag.com, which reported the site sits right off the town's central commercial strip. The Town of Frisco broke ground on the new affordable housing complex, as reported by CBS News Colorado. The development is a partnership between the Town of Frisco and The NHP Foundation, marking NHPF's first project in Colorado, per housingfinance.com.
Frisco contributed the land along with $8.1 million in gap financing to get Galena off the ground, according to the same ccdmag.com report. That local investment was paired with a much larger financing package: most of the money, $18.6 million, came from 501(c)(3) bonds issued by the Middle-Income Housing Authority, the outlet notes. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs also chipped in, awarding the town $2.8 million in grant funds through the More Housing Now and Strong Communities programs for infrastructure around the project.
Frisco's Workforce-Housing Needs
The scale of the gap is significant: the plan identified a need for 329 additional workforce-housing units over the next 10 years, split between 151 ownership units and 178 rental units, per Frisco's housing office.
Why Rents Keep Climbing in Summit County
The pressure behind projects like Galena shows up starkly in the numbers. Summit County's area median income has risen nearly 40% over the last four years, according to local housing officials cited by summitdaily.com. HUD's 2026 calculation now places the county's 100% area median income for a four-person household at $145,800, following a 9.6% increase this year alone, the outlet reports.
Those figures translate directly into rent. A two-bedroom rental priced at 100% of area median income now costs nearly $3,300 a month, up from $2,842 the previous year, per Summit Daily's reporting. The Summit Combined Housing Authority's rental study found a continuing large need, most prominently among households earning less than 80% of area median income, the same account states.
Regional data underscores the trend. Home prices in Colorado's mountain resort counties rose an average of 188.7% from 2012 to 2025, compared with 153.7% statewide, according to research from commonsenseinstituteus.org. As of 2023, five of the seven mountain counties studied had housing shortages, while Grand and Routt counties had slight surpluses, the group found. Summit County has still issued more housing-unit permits than any of those counties since 2012, totaling 4,573 through 2024.
Other Projects in the Pipeline
Galena is not Frisco's only active affordable-housing effort. The Bella, a separate 52-unit affordable housing community also being developed by The NHP Foundation in Frisco, has a completion anticipated in November 2027, according to nhpfoundation.org. The foundation describes The Bella together with a nearby 54-unit workforce-housing community called The Scout as creating 106 homes for people living and working in Frisco and Summit County.
NHP Foundation's property page lists apartments for households earning 30%, 50% and 80% of area median income.
