East of I-5 and south of Santiam Highway, you can see the beginnings of what that part of Albany may look like some years from now, with multi-story apartment blocks covering what now is open land.
On the south side of Creel Avenue, “Colonia del Valle Prospero” looks to be nearing completion. This is the 54-unit apartment house being built by the Farmworker Housing Development Corporation. The Woodburn-based nonprofit that has been creating low-income housing projects in several Oregon towns including Lebanon.
This apartment complex and parking lot is the first phase of the project. In Phase 2, Farmworker Housing has plans for about 100 more apartments between Colonia and Spicer Drive to the south. In Phase 3, it plans a child care and education center. And finally, Phase 4 calls for about a dozen single-family ownership townhomes…