Mayor Jenny Durkan has a $143 million deal in place that will create 175 affordable apartments and a new 30,000-square-foot community center as part of a massive sale of city property in South Lake Union:

Mayor Durkan has transmitted legislation to the City Council to move ahead on the agreement with potential buyer Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.,  the first and longest-tenured which owner, operator, and developer of collaborative life sciences campuses in key urban innovation clusters. Alexandria has supported the Seattle life science cluster for more than 20 years with a number of notable office/laboratory properties, including the Lake Union Steam Plant at 1201 Eastlake Avenue East, the Juno Building at 400 Dexter Avenue North, and its most recently completed development at 188 East Blaine Street.

The nearly $300 million in public benefits that the City of Seattle would receive from Alexandria include:

• $143,500,000 cash at closing, including a $5 million contribution to support strategies that address homelessness in Seattle;
• 175 units of affordable housing on site that are affordable for families earning up to 60 percent of the area median income ($66,400/family of four) and will remain affordable for 50 years without any public subsidy;
• A new 30,000 square-foot community center located on site that will be operated by Seattle Parks & Recreation with rent waived for up to 40 years;
• Transportation improvements including the extension of 8^th Avenue as a pedestrian right-of-way through the site between Mercer and Roy, and the extension of the two-way protected bike lane on the north side of Mercer Street between 9^th Avenue and Dexter.

‘The city says the proposal includes “$300 million” in community benefits. As for the cash, the mayor’s proposal has a plan for that, too:

Of the $143,500,000 in cash proceeds the City would receive from the sale, Mayor Durkan is proposing to:

• Invest $78 million in housing uses, including:
  • $57,200,000 to address displacement and create opportunities for equitable transit-oriented development through a strategic property acquisition fund and revolving Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) acquisition loan fund;
  • $15,000,000 to increase investments in permanently affordable homeownership; and,
  • $6,000,000 for a new financing tool to create more affordable accessory dwelling units like backyard cottages and in-law apartments for low- and middle-income homeowners.
• Invest $16.7 million to support new and planned transportation projects to improve safety and increase options for getting around Seattle.

Mayor Durkan surfaced the plan last month at the Capitol Hill announcement of a new $50M affordable “Housing Seattle Now” plan.

The properties include three parcels comprising of 2.86 acres of land in the South Lake Union neighborhood. Since 2014, the City has been in discussions on how to best utilize the properties to benefit all of Seattle. Last October, the City Council approved legislation that prioritized affordable housing in all sales of city-owned land.

Development of the Mercer properties could produce around 1,300 new homes — under the proposal, about 13% would be affordable.

The City Council will now take up Durkan’s “Mercer Mega Block” proposal and wrangle over details of the legislation.