More than 200 new apartments and townhomes in north Boulder will become available to renters in 2021.

The Armory, a market-rate apartment and townhome complex, will be developed on an approximately 9-acre site previously home to a Colorado National Guard post by Atlanta-based Pollack Shores Real Estate Group, which announced the project Tuesday.

“The Armory marks Pollack Shores’ entry into the Colorado market. Armory Community, LLC, a local investment group led by Bruce Dierking and Jim Loftus, the original visionaries behind the project, will retain a minority interest in the project,” according to a company news release.

Construction of the new residential village at 4750 Broadway will start in the fall, said Kim Sperry, Denver-based managing director at Pollack Shores.

As part of the $90 million project, the historic 9,500-square-foot Armory mess hall and smokestack will be preserved and restored as an activity center for residents, she said. It will have yoga and fitness classes, a kitchen and bar area, club room, outdoor pool deck and leasing office. The village also will have 8,400 square feet of retail space, and two landscaped pocket parks open to the public. There will be surface and underground parking, as well as garages for townhomes, Sperry said.

A total of 201 units will be available for leasing in 2021, she said. Apartments range from 545 square feet to 1,027 square feet, and townhomes range from 1,832 square feet to 3,181 square feet.

About 70% of the units are designed to make rent attainable, Sperry said, adding the townhomes provide an option for families who can’t afford to buy a home in Boulder.

The Armory is a new housing alternative for people who work in Boulder but live elsewhere, she said.

“This is one of the few areas of town where you can walk to locally grown businesses and the Four Mile Creek Trailhead, connect with the NoBo art scene and live next to an industrial building that houses a brewery and wine tasting room,” Sperry said in a statement.

The proposed project adds to the count of 1,026 new apartment units (spread across six developments) already under construction in Boulder, said Teo Nicolais, an instructor specializing in real estate at Harvard Extension School, using data from Apartment Insights. Of those, 105 units are designated as affordable, he said.

An additional 679 apartment units are in the design and zoning approval phase in Boulder spread across four projects, he said

“Boulder has experienced a chronic shortage of new inventory for a long time,” Nicolais said.

Boulder and Broomfield counties have a total of 44,000 apartments, he said. Since 2015, new construction in both counties, with a combined population of 390,000, has averaged 950 units annually, he said.

New apartment complexes generally have 200 units on average, Nicolais said. The big size allows for economies of scale, a greater unit mix and more amenities for residents, he said.

“A critical mass is needed to support high end amenities (in the development),” Nicolais said.

Boulder’s apartment vacancy rate is very low, he said: In the university area, it is 3.2% and in the non-university area, it is 1.8%. Average rent in the university area is $1,893 a month and in the non-university area its is $1,818 a month, Nicolais said citing the latest data from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and the University of Denver.