Verana Hill is a 62-unit affordable apartment community located at the foot of the Eastshore/Solano Hill neighborhood in the City of Albany. The property is adjacent to the new Peggy Thomsen Pierce Street Park, which will eventually be connected with a bicycle and pedestrian path to Cleveland Avenue. The site is a 1.13 acre parcel owned by the City of Albany, who selected SAHA to explore the opportunity to develop the site for affordable family housing. After a year-long community engagement process, Verana Hill received full city planning approvals in December 2019. 

The building has been carefully designed to respond to the surrounding neighborhood adjacencies. The L-shaped building frames the second floor exterior courtyard and protects it from traffic noise of the nearby raised I-80/I-580 freeway. The southern elevation facing Washington Avenue has a vertical rhythm of bays responding to the residential neighborhood. The western Cleveland Avenue façade refines this rhythm with a slightly larger scale fronting Cleveland Avenue, while projecting residential character with a simple pattern of windows and material changes. To the east, the property backs up on the existing neighborhood of apartments and single-family homes. The landscaped area between the podium and property line servse to screen the courtyard and provide privacy to and from the adjacent properties. Verana Hill will be an important community asset that will harmonize with the Eastshore/Solano Hill neighborhood, will help activate nearby Pierce Street Park, and will allow the expansion of the City's active transportation network.