A rendering of the planned YouthCare Academy at Broadway and Pine

The next wave of major redevelopment to sweep across Broadway will be the stuff of urbanist dreams.

Relatively tall.

Affordable.

And with a minimized, streamlined version of Seattle process to pass through.

This week, plans for an eight-story, 84-unit housing project at the heart of Broadway and Pine will be reviewed by administrators with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections. The publicly-financed affordable development will move forward without the slower, more expensive public design review process under emergency rules passed in spring of 2020 to help keep design and landmark reviews on track during the pandemic restrictions.

The plans appear worthy of the rush. Part of the YouthCare South Annex project at Broadway and Pine. Community Roots Housing is leading the development to create eight stories of affordable housing and a homeless youth “education and employment academy” in this core of Capitol Hill. The project is expecting to serve 250 to 300 individuals ages 18 to 24 per year at the training academy. Plans call for an “adaptive reuse” project to overhaul and upgrade the existing structures including the historic Booth Building that will remain two to three stories along E Pine and Broadway. The affordable housing apartment building is planned to rise eight stories on the site of the current surface parking lot.

The large Booth Building at the corner and the smaller E.H. Hamlin Building had been part of Seattle Central’s South Annex facility. Community Roots purchased the property from the school to develop the project with YouthCare.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍 

The project is being funded by a mix of public sources, giving, and traditional financing. In December, the city announced $10 million for the project as part of a wave of affordable housing grants.

The administrative design review is focused on the eight stories of new housing being added to Broadway with a preferred design by Weinstein A+U that “separates the educational and residential programs to the greatest extent by shifting the added building mass to the south half of the site to create an eight-story structure.”

“Educational programs are centered on the Booth Building, while residential access is located along the south property line,” the architects write. “[T]his organizational approach diminishes the building as perceived from both Broadway and E Pine Street.”

With the pandemic helping to mark the end to what might be best remembered as the Capitol Hill Station–era of Broadway development, the 1500-block Broadway project is the second major development on the street moving forward under the streamlined design review rules to start 2022.

The Broadway Urbaine project is being planned as “100% Publicly-Funded Affordable Housing” and would rise seven stories with 95 new apartments, five ground floor live/work units, and retail space replacing the 118-year-old, two-story commercial building currently home to the Jai Thai restaurant, a collection of businesses including a Mud Bay pet supply store location, plus 14 upper floor apartment units.

CHS reported here on a push from some to preserve the two-story Wilshire Building and stop its demolition for the project.

You can also add your comment on the preservation-friendlier YouthCare project here.

Meanwhile, construction on another major affordable housing project on Broadway is already underway where the Pride Place LGBTQ-affirming senior housing development broke ground in September. The affordable housing development dedicated to serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer seniors will include 118 units of studio and one-bedroom apartments, 3,800 square feet of commercial retail space, and a 4,400-square-foot senior and health services center. It is planned for a 2023 opening.

The YouthCare Academy project, meanwhile, had been planned for a 2022 start of construction with a 2024 opening. Though it is finally on the design review fast track, there’s still enough Seattle process still to come to make that timeline a major challenge.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍