ARLINGTON, VA-On Monday JBG is officially opening the doors to its Sedona|Slate apartment towers project. While multifamily projects in this submarket are plentiful given the fundamentals and strong demand for living space, this one is noteworthy for several reasons.

It will be, for starters, Arlington County's first residential development that earns LEED Gold certification. It also has a sizeable affordable housing component, 55 units, which is already fully leased. And finally, it is an example of how transit-oriented development in the DC area is flourishing.

Sedona|Slate consists of two towers at 1510 and 1530 Clarendon Blvd., located three blocks from the Rosslyn Metro station. There are 474 apartments and 10,000 square feet of retail space. The 271-unit Sedona is about 70% leased. Slate will have 203 units; delivery of that building is expected in July.

Fundamentals are clearly robust for this asset class and submarket, but subtle shifts also bear watching. A Marcus & Millichap report on local apartment trends notes that the delivery of new rentals offset net absorption of more than 1,200 units, raising vacancy in the first quarter 20 basis points to 4.8%. Over the past year, the metro wide vacancy rate rose 40 basis points after declines were posted in each of the preceding three years. North Arlington, it finds, has a vacancy rate of 4.9%, for a year over year basis point change of 130.