Firm Overview

Arden Development is a Virginia-based real estate development and development advisory firm focused on multifamily housing, adaptive reuse, historic rehabilitation, and affordable and workforce housing.

Arden Development was founded by Michael Archer, AIA. Michael is both a developer and a Virginia-registered architect with extensive experience in multifamily housing design, affordable housing finance, development review, and affordable housing compliance.

Development Focus

Arden is particularly interested in overlooked or decommissioned properties where thoughtful redevelopment can create housing while preserving existing community assets.This includes surplus schools, historic buildings, former institutional properties, downtown buildings, and other underutilized structures with potential for residential adaptive reuse. With over 15 years of experience in the multifamily housing, design and construction fields, Arden is uniquely positioned to guide complex projects from concept to initial closing, and through construction to lease up.

Our approach begins with feasibility. Before a redevelopment concept becomes a project, we evaluate the building, site, zoning, historic status, potential residential yield, development costs, financing opportunities, regulatory constraints, and major risks that will ultimately determine whether the opportunity is viable.

Firm Leadership

Prior to founding Arden Development, Michael spent approximately nine years as a commercial architect in New York, NY where he oversaw the design and construction of multifamily residential and high-rise commercial developments, including a role as project architect on One World Trade Center. After relocating to Virginia with his family, Michael spent six years with Virginia Housing overseeing the design and construction review of multifamily developments financed through the agency's lending and affordable housing programs. His experience includes LIHTC developments, new construction, rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, accessibility, design standards, construction documentation, and the technical issues that frequently determine whether a housing development is feasible.

Arden was established to apply this extensive career experience to its own future development projects. Additionally, Arden leverages its knowledge base to consult its stakeholder clients early in their development process — identifying opportunities, evaluating difficult properties, helping assemble development strategies and teams, and working with owners, municipalities, developers, architects, contractors, and financing partners to move promising projects forward.

Our practice is well positioned to guide both market rate and affordable multifamily projects through the complex process of tax credits, loan applications, design compliance, accessibility, and construction.