A planned 184-unit apartment community near Wake Forest University has secured $42 million in federally backed construction financing, giving developer Cheferkon Partners its first ground-up project in North Carolina. The garden-style development, called One Salem Apartments, is set on a 15-acre site and will rise in eight buildings with detached garages, a clubhouse, fitness and business centers, a swimming pool, grilling stations, a pickleball court and a dog park.
Dwight Capital originated the HUD 221(d)(4) construction loan for the project, according to Commercial Observer. The loan is nonrecourse, structured with a fully amortizing 40-year term, and is designed to provide long-term stability and predictable debt service payments for the Lilburn, Georgia-based developer. Brandon Baksh originated the loan on Dwight Capital's side.
Greg Chew, who co-founded Cheferkon Partners with Raihan Ferdous, described the location as having strong multifamily fundamentals paired with limited supply in the market. The property's location plays into that pitch: it sits roughly 10 minutes from downtown Winston-Salem, near a Walmart and a Target, with Wake Forest University acting as a demand driver given its proximity to the site. There are two differing accounts of the property's exact address in the available reporting, with one version citing 4033 Vestmill Road, four miles south of Wake Forest, and another citing 119 Brookstown Avenue in Winston-Salem.
Phased Lease-Up Timeline Stretches Into 2028
Cheferkon hopes to finish the first of the eight buildings by the third quarter of 2027, with the full 184-unit project slated for completion in 2028. The report notes that One Salem will lease up in phases rather than all at once, a structure Chew says helps smooth out the project's finances as it comes online.
“That starts to build up income, and that helps offset some of the financing costs,” Chew said, per the same account. The investment group behind One Salem currently includes five partners in addition to Cheferkon, and the firm is looking to bring on more partners by the end of this year.
The project marks a notable expansion for Cheferkon, which has developed a number of projects in the Atlanta region but had not previously broken ground in North Carolina.
Triad Housing Market Faces Its Own Headwinds
The financing arrives as the broader Triad housing market shows signs of strain. The region approved 5,591 housing permits through June, a decline of 40 permits from the same period a year earlier, according to bizjournals.com. Builders cited higher mortgage rates and lengthy approval processes as headwinds weighing on development across the region.
One Salem is not the only major residential project moving forward in Winston-Salem this year. In March, city officials marked the start of construction on 114 new mixed-income housing units as part of the Choice Neighborhood Initiative, a plan to revitalize the Cleveland Avenue neighborhood, according to wunc.org. Those units are also expected to be completed in 2027, putting two sizable housing pushes on roughly parallel timelines in the city even as regional permit activity cools.
