FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 2024

MEDIA CONTACT:
Tia Blount
VP Public Affairs & Communications 
tia.blount@hocmc.org

Kensington, Md. – The Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County (HOC) today announced that The Laureate, its 268-unit mixed-income, mixed-use development in the Derwood community of Rockville, has received an Award of Merit in the 2024 Gold Nugget design competition.

The Gold Nugget Award has recognized top innovators in design, planning, and development for the past 60 years. This year’s competition drew 675 entries in over 60 categories, including single-family production, interior design, custom homes, site planning, multifamily, mixed-use, affordable, commercial, and renovations. The awards were presented at PCBC, the Pacific Coast’s regional conference and trade show for real estate development.

“HOC is honored that the Gold Nugget award judges recognized the meticulous design and planning effort that went into creating The Laureate,” said HOC President/Executive Director Chelsea Andrews. “We appreciate this important recognition of The Laureate as one of the best multifamily housing communities in the country.”

The Laureate, which opened in 2023, is HOC’s first development to be funded by the innovative Housing Production Fund (HPF). The property utilizes natural textures and carefully curated art pieces throughout to create an elegant community. Inspired by the narrative of the American potential embodied by Maryland’s multicultural communities, The Laureate pays homage to Maryland’s Nobel and poet laureates and offers an amenity-rich home to residents that allows them to foster community connections.

The HPF is a $100 million revolving loan fund that provides low-cost construction financing for mixed-income, publicly-owned new developments. Created in partnership with  Montgomery County in 2021, HOC currently projects that the HPF will contribute to the creation of over 3,000 new housing units by 2030. The innovative local financing model that has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and was awarded the 2024 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability. 

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About HOC

HOC serves more than 20,000 Montgomery County households through a variety of innovative housing programs. HOC owns more than 9,400 apartment, townhome and single-family home rental properties, provides rental assistance to more than 7,700 low-income households through the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program and an additional 1,600 households through other types of subsidized housing programs. HOC has also financed more than 4,000 affordable units for other developers and currently has a pipeline of 13 projects in various stages of the development process from design to construction. It has helped more than 2,000 households purchase a home through homeownership and mortgage finance programs. Visit HOC.