A new homebuilding company has emerged from the pairing of two very different Utah real estate players, and it's already got five projects in the ground across Salt Lake City, Millcreek, Boise and St. George. Kensington Home Company, formed through a partnership between the institutional Gardner Group and the design-focused firm Urban Alfandre, is targeting infill urban locations throughout Utah and Idaho with a lineup of townhomes, brownstones, single-family homes, urban starter homes and luxury high-rise condos.
The joint venture, first reported by Building Salt Lake, pairs Gardner Group's institutional development muscle with Urban Alfandre's boutique, design-led approach to urban infill. Stephen Alfandre, now CEO of Kensington Home Company, said the new firm combines “the Gardner Group's institutional strength with Urban Alfandre's design-focused approach,” according to the same report. Urban Alfandre, led by brothers James and Stephen Alfandre, has previously developed both for-sale and rental housing across the region.
Christian Gardner, CEO and chairman of the Gardner Group, framed the venture's mission around affordability, saying Kensington “seeks to create accessible pathways to homeownership in vibrant, well-planned neighborhoods,” per Building Salt Lake's reporting. Kensington has pledged to eliminate friction, opacity, and frustration associated with purchasing a home, and the company plans to keep its brokerage operations in-house rather than farming sales out to a separate broker.
Five Projects Already Underway From Salt Lake City To Boise
Kensington currently has five separate development projects underway, with two in Salt Lake City, one each in Millcreek, Boise and St. George, and a fifth still in planning in Washington, Utah. The company says it will keep a regional focus on its key geographic markets: the Wasatch Front, St. George and Boise.
In Salt Lake City, the Matson Hill project sits near 900 East and 400 South on the hill leading up to the University of Utah, on a 0.76-acre infill site that formerly held a Village Inn restaurant, according to di'velept design, the firm behind the project. Matson Hill will deliver 20 high-end, brownstone-style townhomes across four levels with private rooftop terraces, with anticipated pricing ranging from the high $900,000s to mid-$1.5 million, per di'velept's project specs.
Also in Salt Lake City, Kensington's Park Row development will bring approximately 27 for-sale townhomes to the market, including starter-home pricing aimed at buyers who might otherwise be shut out of ownership entirely.
Millcreek Brownstones Sit Steps From New Civic Plaza
In Millcreek, Kensington's Brookline development will bring 18 new units to 1265 E. Villa Vista Ave., consisting of multi-level brownstones with private rooftop decks up to 650 square feet, some with optional elevators. The project sits two blocks from Millcreek Common, a civic plaza the city of Millcreek built as a walkable urban hub featuring an ice rink, splash pad, and retail space, according to The Kensington Home Company.
Kensington's Boise footprint centers on a project along the Boise River Greenbelt expected to include 67 townhomes. The 25-mile recreational corridor has driven rapid downtown and West End residential expansion in Boise, according to the Capital City Development Corporation, connecting urban residential pockets directly to the downtown core.
In Washington, Utah, near St. George, Kensington's Solente project remains in planning stages, with the company describing plans to build walkable, design-led communities in infill areas there as well.
Two Development Philosophies, One Housing Crunch
The Gardner Group brings serious institutional weight to the partnership. Before forming Kensington, the company had developed tens of millions of square feet of commercial real estate across Utah, Idaho, and Nevada, according to the Gardner Group, including Adobe's Lehi campus and Baltic Pointe in Draper, Utah's first commercial mass-timber office building. Gardner has also been active on parallel high-density residential fronts in Salt Lake City, including a 16-story Sugar House tower proposal it filed for in February.
Urban Alfandre, meanwhile, built its reputation through smaller-scale, design-driven infill. The firm previously catalyzed redevelopment in Salt Lake City with Granary Row, a 2013 container-based pop-up retail district, and went on to build attached missing-middle projects including the 32-unit Row Seventeen and 40-unit Gabbott's Row in the Ballpark neighborhood, according to FOCUS Engineering & Surveying. The firm was founded in 2015 and has focused extensively on walkable urban submarkets along the Wasatch Front.
Kensington also maintains ties to Powderland, an ongoing invite-only event for professionals interested in raising design standards, reflecting the company's stated commitment to creating timeless, architecturally striking residential designs. Overall, the company says it aims to serve residents at all stages of life, designing communities that complement vibrant, walkable neighborhoods for diverse buyer demographics.
Why Missing-Middle Housing Is Suddenly In Demand
Kensington's entire business model rests on filling a gap researchers have been flagging for years. High-density residential housing, including townhomes, condominiums, and twin homes, accounted for 28% of all existing residential sales and 28% of new residential construction across Utah in 2024, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Utah ranked as the ninth most expensive housing market in the nation that same year.
The state entered 2025 facing a housing deficit exceeding 44,000 units, and researchers have noted that middle-density housing types like townhomes cost roughly $150,000 less to build than traditional single-family homes in the region, according to KSL. Rapid population growth and surging land costs have severely constrained single-family home attainability across the Wasatch Front, pushing both builders and buyers toward attached housing options.
That pressure has been building on the rental side too. Average rents in Salt Lake County jumped by $321 per month between 2020 and 2022, matching nearly 20 years of prior rent escalation combined, as Hoodline previously reported. That kind of rent growth has prompted local municipalities to prioritize high-density infill housing and encourage attached townhome and condo ownership as an alternative.
Kensington markets its properties through an affiliated in-house brokerage rather than routing transactions through an outside sales agency, with formal disclosures on the company's launch portal outlining the separation between the builder entity and its brokerage operations, according to The Kensington Home Company. With five projects already underway and a sixth in planning, the joint venture is betting that pairing institutional capital with design-conscious infill can chip away at a housing shortage that has outpaced supply for years.
