Three years after the city of Bend started a project to create affordable housing downtown, the Putnam Pointe apartment and condominium building opened Saturday with every apartment rented.

The $13 million, five-floor project is located next to the Centennial Parking Plaza, at the corner of Lava Road and Oregon Avenue.

Each of the 33 apartment units, priced between $437 and $601 per month, rented “in a heartbeat,” said Cyndy Cook, the executive director for Housing Works, Central Oregon’s affordable housing organization, which co-developed the project.

“It’s a fabulous mixed-use project,” said Cook, comparing it with projects in the Pearl District in downtown Portland. “It is the first urban-type development in downtown Bend that offers work force housing. It is a wonderful opportunity to see regular citizens of Bend being able to (live) in the downtown core.”

The project’s grand opening is scheduled today on the ground floor from 3 to 6 p.m. The public is invited to attend, and condominium tours will be available, Housing Works officials said.

At least one downtown business owner has felt an impact from the new development.

“Whenever anything new goes in, it creates more activity down here,” said Kent Hazel, the owner of Thump Coffee, on Minnesota Avenue near Putnam Pointe.

Hazel gave each of the new residents gift cards to his coffee shop and has seen a handful of them redeemed since the building opened, he said.

“It brings more people to this part of downtown,” he said. “The more life there is down here, the better it is for everybody.”

The project also features 11 condominiums on the top floor of the building and 8,600 square feet of ground floor commercial space, Cook said. While the apartment units on the second through the fourth floors were financed through a mix of a federal low-income housing tax credit program and the city’s urban renewal development program, the condo and commercial part of the project were privately financed, Cook said.

Originally, the project was called Lava Court and was to have 44 apartments for low-income residents, with a restaurant or other retail on the ground floor. But rising construction costs at the time forced Housing Works to convert 11 apartments into condominiums to recover costs, according to previous reports in The Bulletin.

Housing Works is co-developing the project with Portland-based KemperCo, which could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Housing Works held a lottery in February anticipating high demand for the one- and two-bedroom condos, which are priced between $178,500 for a 595-square-foot unit and $265,000 for a 1,023-square-foot unit, respectively. So far, two of the condos have been reserved and no commercial space has been leased, said Cook, who expects more buyer interest now that the condos are available for viewing.

“We are getting more bites now,” she said of increasing interest in the commercial and condo space. “Six months ago, it was really depressing. They are getting some market activity there.”