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The largest affordable housing development to arrive in Multnomah County in the past half century is now open.

The Louisa Flowers is a 12-story, 240-unit mixed-use building operated by Home Forward in Lloyd, at 515 N.E. Holladay St. LEVER Architecture and LRS Architects designed the building to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold standards. O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders, served as the project’s general contractor.

The building has 88 studio apartments, 109 one-bedroom apartments and 43 two-bedroom apartments; all are affordable units. Ground-floor space is occupied by on-site property management and retail shops.

Louisa Flowers and her husband Allen were two of the leaders of Portland’s small African-American community in the 1890s, according to Oregon Black Pioneers. After first operating a farm in the Lents area, Louisa purchased land in lower Albina and built four homes there 鈥� not far from the new building named for her.

鈥淭he process we undertook to name this building is different than the way we’ve approached it in the past,鈥� Home Forward Executive Director Michael Buonocore said. 鈥淲e took our time recognizing that the contributions of people of color and women in this city are often disregarded in the naming of our buildings, streets and landmarks.鈥�

Buonocore expressed gratitude to the Oregon Black Pioneers and YWCA for assisting the process.

鈥淭heir history, their contributions to this city will not be lost, and we will all understand ourselves a little better as Portlanders for knowing about the Flowers family,鈥� Buonocore said.

Crews in late 2017 broke ground on the building that has provided the local market the most new affordable units since the 286-unit Hollywood East building opened in 1969.

The $74 million project was funded through a mix of public and private sources. The single largest chunk was $28.7 million via federal low-income housing tax credits. An additional $18 million came from bond funding, and $5.1 million more came from the city of Portland.

The Jim Smith Garden open-air courtyard, named in honor of Home Forward’s former board chairman, highlights the ground floor and connects the building’s lobby, commercial spaces and the building’s north and south sides, via covered walkways.