A developer has listed eighteen townhomes on North 19th Avenue as attainable housing with prices starting at six hundred fifty thousand dollars. The units range from one thousand two hundred to one thousand six hundred square feet. Each includes a two-car garage and a covered patio pre-wired for outdoor television.
The project sits on a lot that held a single-family rental until March. The previous tenant, a surgical technician at Bozeman Health, paid fourteen hundred a month. She now commutes from Livingston.
“Attainable means different things to different households,” said Brad Tiffin, principal of Summit Ridge Development. “We’re delivering a product that lets essential workers build equity in a walkable location.” Tiffin defines essential workers as households earning between one hundred fifty and three hundred percent of area median income. A registered nurse and a teacher filing jointly fall just outside the upper bound.
The development is called Bridger Commons. Marketing materials feature a woman in a puffy vest carrying a reusable bag toward a coffee roaster that opens at seven a.m. The roaster is also a Summit Ridge project. It charges seven dollars for a pour-over.
Three blocks south, a nineteen-seventies apartment complex rents two-bedroom units for sixteen hundred. The waitlist has forty names. The property manager, Doris Helms, said she receives calls daily from people who work at the hospital, the university, and the school district. “They don’t have six hundred fifty thousand,” she said. “They have first and last and a security deposit.”
The city commission approved the project’s density bonus in June after hearing testimony about the critical need for attainable ownership options. Two commissioners voted no. One said the math didn’t math. The other said nothing and stared at the site plan.
Construction begins in October. The model unit opens for tours in January. Tiffin said he expects to sell out by spring. “People want to own something here,” he said. “Even if it’s a small something.”
The surgical technician from Livingston drives past the site every morning. She waves at the flagger.