The Bungalows on Cerrillos site plan looks like a typical single-family housing development, but the city Early Neighborhood Notification announcement describes it as a “multifamily residential complex.”

Cavan Companies is proposing a concept new to Santa Fe but abundant in the Phoenix area.

Santa Fe, along with Los Lunas, Houston and San Antonio, Texas, will be Cavan’s first entries outside Arizona for its The Bungalows housing line. These are rental homes with the dimensions of apartments built as single-family homes and duplexes — but you can still call the manager if the water heater doesn’t work.

“Effectively, they are deconstructed apartments on the ground,” said Jeremy Hall, executive director of development at the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cavan. “Rather than three-story buildings, these are one-story on the ground. We call them single-family detached homes for rent. There is an on-site manager and maintenance person. There are central amenities much like at an apartment complex.”

The 139-unit Bungalows on Cerrillos is planned for 27794 W. Frontage Road at Cerrillos Road. Cavan wants to extend the Beckner Road name across Cerrillos, reroute the frontage road and introduce a roundabout at the entrance to The Bungalows on Cerrillos.

Hall said Cavan has negotiated for months with the New Mexico Department of Transportation and city traffic officials on the proposed road changes.

“We think we have a final plan that is approvable by NMDOT and city traffic folks,” Hall said.

Cavan would like to start construction by the end of the year and open 18 months later, sometime in 2025, Hall said. He anticipates about 40% one-bedroom bungalows at about 700 square feet built out as duplexes “because they are so small,” 45% as roughly 1,000-square-foot, two-bedroom detached homes and 15% three-bedroom homes measuring about 1,300 square feet.

“They are very traditional in size [as apartments],” he said.

Cavan Companies has gone all-in with The Bungalows in the past seven years after decades of mostly office building development, including the Albuquerque projects One Executive Center, San Mateo Corporate Center and 500 Marquette.

Cavan has built five The Bungalows communities in the Phoenix area, with another 15 under construction.

“We have over 4,000 units under construction,” Hall said. “We are the largest developer of these types of projects in Arizona. We are looking for other locations in New Mexico, Texas, Nebraska and Colorado. We are looking at other sites in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.”

Hall estimates Cavan and other builders have produced some 50 or 60 of these detached apartment communities in metro Phoenix in recent years. The Bungalows addresses what Cavan describes as the “social-economic shift in housing” across the country.

“These are for apartment dwellers who no longer want people who live above or below them, who want a garden more than just a balcony,” Hall said. “We have a really broad range of folks living at these. We have families, we have retirees, we have traditional apartment dwellers. We have roommate situations. This product is popular with traveling nurses.”

As different as The Bungalows on Cerrillos will be from typical apartments, the rental range will be similar to nearly all the more than 30 other apartment projects built, under construction or planned in Santa Fe over the past five years.

“We tend to be above apartment rents,” Hall said. “We are a market-rate project. For a one-bedroom, I would say above $1,500.”

Santa Fe’s new apartment boom is mirrored nationally.

“There is a shift nationally to more rental housing,” Hall said. “This is not renting by necessity. This is renting by choice.”