Rocky River Apartments breaks ground in Woodfin, 120 affordable units planned

Dirt is finally moving in Woodfin on a project that has spent years in planning and approvals. Rocky River Apartments, a 120-unit affordable housing development off Reynolds Mountain Boulevard, broke ground May 20 and is now set to bring one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments to Buncombe County families earning between 30% and 80% of area median income.

The $44.4 million project is being led by Fitch Irick Corporation, with the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville supporting the development through 48 project-based vouchers. Those vouchers will make part of the complex affordable for households at or below 30% of area median income, one of the county’s deepest affordability needs and a level that often puts rents within reach for residents who are priced out of market-rate housing.

For Woodfin, the project represents more than a single apartment building. Town records show the site, a roughly 7.99-acre tract at 99999 Reynolds Mountain Boulevard, had already been approved around 2018 for multifamily use and was left about 75% cleared and graded before the earlier effort stalled. A 2024 staff report described Rocky River as all-affordable for at least 30 years, and Woodfin later backed Asheville Housing Authority bond financing in a November 2025 resolution. Buncombe County also approved affordable-housing funding in 2024 that included the Woodfin project.

The construction timeline now matters as much as the approvals that got it here. Work is expected to continue through 2027, with completion targeted for early 2028. That means the project’s success will be measured not by the groundbreaking alone, but by whether the financing holds, the build stays on schedule and the apartments open when promised for families who need larger units close to jobs, schools and services.

The broader regional context helps explain the pressure behind the project. Recent reporting says HACA owns 1,525 apartments in eight Asheville complexes and distributes about 1,300 housing choice vouchers, while another housing resource source places its portfolio at 1,534 units and more than 1,355 voucher-assisted households. Asheville also says its Housing Trust Fund helped build about 1,300 units between 2001 and 2019, underscoring how long Buncombe County has been trying to close its affordable-housing gap. Rocky River is now one of the clearest signs that some of that planning is turning into construction.