Willy Boulay and Mike Hudson have a grand vision for building affordable apartments for people with below-median incomes that are as nice as market-rate properties.

Their first buildings, one in Minneapolis that opened in May and another about to open in St. Paul, live up to their plans. Both have fitness centers, balconies on most units, roof decks, solar arrays, EV chargers, community rooms, even indoor playgrounds they tested themselves.

“The slide will support guys over 30,” Boulay said as he and Hudson took me through Canvas, their 161-unit project in northeast Minneapolis. It gets its name from all the original paintings purchased from neighborhood artists to fill halls and other common areas.

The seven-story building cost $71 million and is open to renters of all ages who make 60% of average market income, a level sometimes known as workforce housing. Hennepin County and the city of Minneapolis provided subsidies in the form of tax-exempt bonds and tax credits that will discount rents for 40 years. It’s a typical form of financing for affordable housing to help cover the difference between it and market-rate homes.

As of last week, Canvas had just two vacancies. Well, plus one big one on the ground floor.

To get the project approved, their firm, Broadway Street Development, had to comply with the desires of City Council members for buildings in a so-called “production” district, designated to create employment-focused developments.

As a result, the ground floor was built with 18-foot ceilings and about half of it, around 23,000 square feet, was set aside for commercial use. Perhaps a microbrewery with a taproom will lease it, or a commercial production studio, or a small industrial business that isn’t too disruptive to the hundreds of residents above.

Boulay and Hudson are confident they will get the space filled. They noted, however, that projects coming after them haven’t required as much space set aside. Which leads me to remind readers that, when my now-retired colleague Neal St. Anthony wrote about Canvas as construction was getting underway two years ago, he focused on the years of work Boulay, Hudson and partner Sterling Black of LS Black Constructors had already put in to get it financed.