Capital Vue apartment project passes two-thirds mark

Posted by Rick Abasta | Sep 20, 2025 | News |

By Rick Abasta
Navajo Housing Authority

WINDOW ROCK

The Capital Vue Apartment Complex is taking shape behind the Window Rock post office, with construction now 65-70 percent complete, according to NHA Development Manager Ted Jensen.

“We’re doing a lot of the interior work now: drywall, taping, texturing. We have two units that are at that stage right now,” he said.

All 12 buildings are framed, and rough-ins for mechanical, plumbing, and electrical are underway. Exterior siding is going up, and “all of the windows and doors are in for eight buildings, which is a total of forty units,” Jensen said.

Utilities are moving as well. Water and sewer work is about 90 percent complete and trenching that began in late August is now underway. NTUA will install underground electrical and fiber-optic lines. “By then, we should have the first building completed. We’re trying to get the first building finished as a model, so people can see that,” he said.

Building 4, on the complex’s west side, was selected as the model. After months of watching the “skeletal frames,” Jensen said the building is now taking shape.

“Every building consists of five units, (and) with twelve buildings, that gives a total of sixty units,” he said. “On the south end, there’s an empty lot where we’re planning on building two more buildings for ten additional units.”

Those 10 additional units come from supplemental funding. At its July 17, 2025, regular meeting, the NHA Board of Commissioners approved NHA-5307-2025, an informal amendment to the fiscal 2025 Indian Housing Plan that allocates $5 million to construct 10 public rental units for AZ12-2251. “We’ll probably have to bid that project out on a separate contract,” Jensen said, noting it will be design-build. “We’re going to use the same floor plan.”

NHA Chief Operating Officer Ernest Franklin said Capital Vue was originally designed to use non-programmable income funds. “That would have allowed us to provide housing outside of our normal clientele at 80 percent below the poverty level,” he said.

Franklin added that studio apartments are a key feature to support quick move-ins for seasonal workers. “This was meant for the professional people out there who want a studio as temporary housing as they work for the Navajo Nation,” he said. “Like the lawyers, lobbyists, and any professional that is in need of a secondary home.”

While the current complex will still include mixed-density tenants, Franklin said the broader goal is a replicable prototype for other housing management offices across the Navajo Nation. “We want to build housing that will increase our income and allow us to use that as leverage for future housing projects,” he said. “We need to become more self-sufficient as an organization.”

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