This is the 54-apartment building that Farmworker Housing Development Corporation is building on Creel Avenue, as seen on Saturday, June 20, 2026.
East of I-5 and south of Santiam Highway, you can see the beginnings of what that part of Albany may look like some years from now, with multi-story apartment blocks covering what now is open land.
On the south side of Creel Avenue, “Colonia del Valle Prospero” looks to be nearing completion. This is the 54-unit apartment house being built by the Farmworker Housing Development Corporation. The Woodburn-based nonprofit that has been creating low-income housing projects in several Oregon towns including Lebanon.
This apartment complex and parking lot is the first phase of the project. In Phase 2, Farmworker Housing has plans for about 100 more apartments between Colonia and Spicer Drive to the south. In Phase 3, it plans a child care and education center. And finally, Phase 4 calls for about a dozen single-family ownership townhomes.
The Farmworker Housing projects are made possible by millions of dollars in state aid in the form of grants and tax credits.
Colonia is likely to be followed by other major housing developments in the vicinity.
In March the Albany City Council approved the annexation of about 30 acres north of Spicer Drive and west of the Colonia property. In the annexation area, developers organized as East Albany Town Center have visions of between 900 and 1,000 dwellings, some in buildings as tall as seven stories.
The “town center” project may be some time off. So far, community development director Matthew Ruettgers told me Monday, no applications for site-plan review or any other land use permits have been submitted for any of the land included in the annexation.
On Saturday I made an excursion to that neighborhood. The main reason was to get an oil change at Power Honda for our 13-year-old Civic.
But before driving to Creel Avenue to look at progress on the Colonia project, I also wandered to the dead end of Timber Street to gaze across the field where the “town center” is to be built:
Saying “so long” to all that open space now was probably premature. But one of these days, that open field will be gone. (hh)
Hasso, when they put in The Albany Walmart, the land in between that and Santiam (Highway 20) was supposed to have shops and restaurants, etc. Never happened. If you read the Walmart sign on Highway 20, it still says it is a “shopping center.” It isn’t. It is a Walmart, as all that never happened. They even mentioned at the time, if I remember right, having maybe an In-and-Out Burger Joint. So, let’s wait and see what develops from these current “big ideas.”
They also said Olive Garden. This is the only town I have ever seen when a WalMart was built there’s nothing around it. We’ve been through a lot of states traveling. Why can’t we get anything here except apartments?
It saddens my heart to see this happen. You don’t think of tomorrow. The traffic, lack of schools, lack of emergency services, the noise. The list goes on and on. You as city council members have ruined our city, country sides, ect.
I live just down the street from your image of the apartments. While new dwelling opportunities are great to see, the whole neighborhood is worried about how these changes will impact the feel of where we live. I am assuming we will need to say goodbye to our local flock of wild turkeys, the volume of song and hummingbirds who call our streets home, and prepare our children for an increase in the number of and speed of cars traveling to Home Depot and Walmart and using our neighborhood as a shortcut.
The state paid for this with taxpayer dollars and tax exemptions. Don’t know what farm housing did
As long as we endorse overpopulation and the marketing of Oregon we will see this. I mean everyone who moves here says they love it. And they love it compared to what…where they moved from which was all pavement?
So, is it the low income housing or the eventual loss of a view sometime in the future? To point out the obvious, every home you’ve ever lived in has blocked someone’s view of something.
The solution to a housing shortage is new construction. The solution to affordability is low cost.
You don’t have to live there, good for you!
Don’t like the ‘view’? How about streets lined with working people living in cars and vans and travel trailers?
I enjoy most of your content, but your negative obsession with new apartment construction is unrelenting.
Our falling birth rate should prevent most of this. No doubt the builders believe the next administration will furnish the needed illegal immigrants again, supported by our friendly state government. How much longer can they find voters in favor of the higher taxes needed?
Oh good grief, be serious.
Those darn immigrants again!
East Albany will need a Wells Fargo bank sooner or later….Oh wrong post…
Don’t hold your breath for the promised amenities in your neighborhood. When we moved to the neighborhood off of 53rd Avenue ( the zoo), we were told that a large development was in the works across Pacific. Restaurants, retail and grocery shops were planned, but twenty years later none have arrived. All the occupants of our neighborhood drive across town to access shopping. Now the city has approved 108 more residents, an apartment complex, to join the daily commute. It seems all they care about is the influx of cash from construction and property taxes. Once you live here, you’re just a source of income and there’s no concern for quality of life. Time to vote them out!
I won’t comment on the site, but the development org is top notch. I visited their original effort in Woodburn and it still looks great.