400-unit apartment project breaks ground near Alamance Crossing in Burlington

Will 400 new apartments across from Alamance Crossing help ease Alamance County’s housing squeeze, or mainly add higher-end inventory beside Burlington’s busiest retail corridor?

The Lucas brothers broke ground on April 14 on a 400-unit apartment project along the I-40/I-85 corridor in Burlington, putting a major new housing development in direct view of one of the city’s most trafficked commercial areas. The site sits across from Alamance Crossing, the shopping center that CBL Properties says draws more than 110,000 vehicles a day along the interstate corridor.

The project lands in a city and county that are still growing quickly. Burlington’s estimated population reached 61,365 in 2024, up 7.0% from the 2020 census, while Alamance County climbed to 183,040, up 6.7% over the same period. At the same time, Census Bureau estimates put Burlington’s median gross rent at $1,051 and Alamance County’s at $1,064, figures that underscore why every large apartment addition matters in the local housing market.

The new development also extends a recent wave of multifamily construction in Burlington. Life Time Living, a 167-unit residential community, opened in 2024, and other apartment projects have already filled out parts of the same interstate corridor. Taken together, the projects point to a market where builders are still betting on steady demand from renters who want quick access to Burlington retail, I-40, I-85 and the wider Triad.

Burlington is also keeping a closer eye on that growth. The city recently launched a Development Dashboard that tracks apartment complexes, commercial properties, manufacturing facilities, new subdivisions and other major projects across the city. That tool reflects a local economy in which housing construction, retail traffic and interstate access are now tightly linked, especially in the area around Alamance Crossing.

For Alamance County, the question is not whether growth is arriving. It already is. The bigger issue is whether projects like this one produce enough apartments to broaden the local housing supply, or whether the added units simply reinforce the city’s role as a higher-demand corridor where housing, shopping and highway access continue to compete for the same ground.