Photographic Center Northwest owns its building and its future on 12th Ave as plans are coming together for a new mixed-use development at the corner of 12th and Marion that will include a new home for the nonprofit dedicated to photography and learning.

“I’m humbled by the fact we can remain one of those arts anchors in this neighborhood in a time that is really unstable for many,” Terry Novak, executive director of the center and co-chair of the Capitol Hill Arts District steering committee, tell CHS.

As the district committee has watched arts groups and creators large and small exit the neighborhood due to high rents and limited space, Novak says she hopes PCNW can represent a hold point for others to hold on.

Plans for a new Focus on 12th Apartments development in partnership with the photo center and developer Vibrant Cities are moving quickly into Seattle’s public process with reviews of the planned project’s design and the history of the existing building slated for coming months.

The project would demolish the nearly 100-year-old, two-story masonry building PCNW has called home since A.K. Shethar and the organization acquired the property from Shephard Ambulance — the company that would become private ambulance provider AMR — for $605,000 in 1996. The center’s history goes back further to its founding in the 1980s before Shethar purchased the organization, renamed it, and set it on its course with moves from downtown, and then Green Lake, to Capitol Hill.

PCNW offers classes and production facilities including a darkroom, digital lab, plus processing, printing, and scanning services.

The new project will fill the corner with a new Vibrant Cities seven-story, 168-unit apartment building with underground parking.

Winston Yeung, the owner and managing director of Vibrant Cities, says he expects the new building to offer market rate housing along with Seattle Mandatory Housing Affordability and Multifamily Tax Exemption factors that could add a few affordable units to the mix. There is also a possibility of working with nearby Seattle University to offer school-affiliated housing.

While Yeung also has dabbled in photography, he said his interest in partnering with PCNW comes from its strength in the community and an opportunity to work with a nonprofit that is also a property owner.

“We were very lucky,” Yeung said. “Most other projects, there isn’t an organization like this to partner with.”

The process is just beginning. Novak said PCNW’s expects to be in its current building through 2022 — “probably nothing major until 2023,” Novak said.

Then, at some point, PCNW will transition its mission temporarily to a more mobile existence that will likely include a new short-term “satellite” facility plus exhibitions “in the communities we want to serve,” Novak says, and “a chance to program beyond four walls” during two years of so of construction.

The new space for the photographic center will eventually fill the ground floor of the building with a redesigned, more modern facility.

But you’ll still find darkrooms, Novak says.

“We want to design a space that feels very community forward, lots of glass and warm and welcoming,” Novak said. “When you are walking down the street, you say what’s that place.”

It’s also a chance to leave the challenges of the existing building behind.

“Issues in a building that was more than 100 years old are real,” Novak said.

But her larger hope is to expand the communities that PCNW can serve while adding new technologies.

In her work with the arts district trying to advocate for groups and space on the Hill for creators, Novak said there has been ongoing talk about nonprofits can find healthy partnerships with developers busy changing the neighborhood.

“We are so excited to be a model for this possibility,” Novak said.

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