A Bend developer has planning approval for a 144-unit apartment complex in the southeast part of the city.

Keith Studwell said the next step is completing plans for sewer lines and other utilities at the 8-acre site on Pettigrew Road just north of Reed Market Road. Construction of the Woodhaven Apartments is still some months away, Studwell said.

“You don’t complete the engineering because there might be changes (in the planning phase),” he said recently. “Now that we know we have planing approval, we’ll go out and complete the engineering.”

Woodhaven is one of four projects in planning stages in Bend that would add 823 units to a market eager for rentals, according to the city’s Community Development Department. Two other projects, 500 Bond with 230 units and Mill Quarter with 49, are in the building and engineering approval phases as well. A fifth apartment project, the 104-unit Sage Springs, is under construction on Boyd Acres Road. The vacancy rate in Bend fell to 1 percent in 2013, according to the annual survey by the Central Oregon Rental Owners Association.

Studwell, who said he built “a couple of little infill projects” in Bend, said this project marks his return as a developer following the economic downturn that knocked the underpinnings from the local housing market. Studwell prior to recession built small. The project engineer, Tim Weishaupt of Sun Country Engineering & Surveying Inc., predicted a summer construction start for Woodhaven, although Studwell was noncommittal.

“We’re just moving along,” Studwell said. “As it comes up and we get closer we’ll know more.”

The site is within the Daly Estates Subdivision in southeast Bend. Plans on file with the city call for 15 two-story apartment buildings built in eight phases between this year and 2016. Plans call for internal streets that empty onto Woodhaven Avenue and a planned extension of Capella Place.

A city traffic study found the apartments would generate more than 800 trips per day on local streets. According to city data from March 2011, about 1,000 vehicles use the Reed Market and Pettigrew roads intersection during the peak traffic period, 4-6 p.m. daily.

— Reporter, 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com