UMOM Starts Building 192-Unit Salamanca Square Affordable Housing Project on Former Alhambra School Land

PHOENIX — Another patch of underused school-district land in Phoenix is about to become homes. UMOM New Day Centers, the nonprofit that runs the Valley’s largest emergency shelter operation, has started construction on Salamanca Square, a 192-unit affordable housing complex near 39th and Grand avenues — built on land the Alhambra School District decided it didn’t need.

The $64 million project, expected to complete construction in 2027, will rent one- to four-bedroom apartments to households earning up to 60% of the area median income, financed through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. For a family of four in 2026, that threshold means earning $67,440 a year or less, according to city data cited by the Arizona Republic — in a metro where working families are routinely priced out of new rentals.

The dealA two-step land shuffle

Getting the land into UMOM’s hands took some legal choreography. Under Arizona law, school districts can only sell or lease property to public entities — the state, a county, a city, another school district or a tribal government agency — when the sale won’t affect normal school operations. So the city of Phoenix bought the 5.54-acre parcel from the Alhambra district for $2.3 million in early 2025, placed a Land Use Restrictive Agreement requiring affordable housing for at least 40 years, and then resold the land to UMOM at the same price.

It’s a small, telling detail about how hard affordable housing is to build: even the land deal requires the city as a pass-through. UMOM acquired control of the site under a partnership with Phoenix and the district after Alhambra determined it didn’t need the land for school purposes. City records show the bond financing for the project — up to $50 million in bonds issued through a city authority to fund the 192-unit development at 4439 N. 39th Avenue.

The projectWhat 192 units looks like

Salamanca Square will offer apartment layouts from one-bedroom, one-bathroom units to four-bedroom, two-bathroom units for larger families — a deliberate mix, since the families UMOM serves range from single parents with one child to multigenerational households. The complex will connect residents to local community resources, an important detail for a population that’s often one missed paycheck from the shelter line.

The money stack behind the project is as layered as the financing behind most affordable housing: the Phoenix Industrial Development Authority, the city of Phoenix, the Arizona Department of Housing, the Arizona Finance Authority, plus lenders and investors including Raymond James, BOK Financial and Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust. The builder is H&B Builders, the architect is Perlman Architects of Arizona, and the partners include Helping Hands Housing Services and Lotzar Law Firm. Affordable housing in America doesn’t happen with one check — it happens with a dozen.

The modelA proven playbook

Salamanca Square is not UMOM’s first pass at this exact maneuver. The nonprofit previously completed a similar transaction with the city and the Isaac School District to build La Esperanza Terrace, a 96-unit affordable community — double the size this time, but the same idea: take land a district isn’t using, route it through the city, and turn it into homes while giving the district money for land it didn’t need.

“School districts have underutilized resources,” Meaghan Rodeck, UMOM’s chief operating officer, told the Arizona Republic. “If the land is not used by schools to support kids, we should find a way to use it to support the community.” The framework, she said, could be a scalable model — more affordable housing supply, and cash for school districts from unused land.

The scale matters. Founded in 1964, UMOM provides emergency shelter and services to nearly 800 people a night — 155 families and 80 single women — and has developed nearly 1,000 permanently affordable rental units across the Valley, with more than 900 already in operation. For Rodeck, the work is arithmetic: “For us, solving family homelessness is a math problem. There is a shortage of affordably priced housing. There is no one silver bullet solution.”

Her boss put it more bluntly. “At a time when families are struggling to find affordable housing, we have a responsibility to use every available resource,” said Monique Lopez, UMOM’s CEO, in the project announcement. “Salamanca Square turns underutilized school district land into a pathway to stability.”

The contextWhy this matters now

Phoenix keeps adding people faster than it adds housing they can afford — a story Vegas knows well, where tenants in Glendale have been fighting rent hikes and eviction threats at buildings with no rent protections. Salamanca Square’s 192 units won’t fix a regional shortage on their own, but the model is the news: a repeatable legal and financial path from a district’s idle acreage to occupied apartments, with the district getting paid and families getting stability. The Alhambra district’s representative said in the project announcement that stable housing is “foundational to a child’s success in school” — and that the partnership supports families beyond the classroom.

Whether the model scales depends on how many districts have land to spare and how many nonprofits can handle transactions this complicated. Rodeck acknowledged the complexity but said it hasn’t deterred the organization: “It doesn’t deter us if it’s more complicated.” Construction is slated to wrap in 2027, and the agreement closed August 26, 2026. Nearly 200 more families will soon have a place to call home — built, in a sense, on the ground the district left empty.