Neighbours is hoped to have dozens of new neighbors by August (Image: CHS)
Keeping people moving on Broadway has been part of the job (Image: CHS)
Pride Place, a LGBTQ-affirming affordable senior housing project that will include a 4,400-square-foot senior and health services center rising above Broadway and neighboring Capitol Hill classic gay dance club Neighbours, is on track to open for its first residents late this summer.
Construction crews marked the development’s “topping out” in December, a milestone signifying the last major beams are in place and work can now begin to seal up the building, dry the structure out after weeks of ice and rain, and get to work on installing interiors as well as important systems like plumbing and electrical.
On CHS’s visit last month to the work site on Broadway between Pike and Pine, there were also important decisions being made — where in the neighborhood should they get tacos for the dozens of construction workers busy on the project to celebrate a 90-day safety milestone.
The development is the result of a collaborative effort of GenPride, the nonprofit serving LGBTQ older adults, and Community Roots Housing, a low-income housing provider headquartered on Capitol Hill but increasingly focused on investments across the city. But the work underway above Broadway since the project broke ground in September 2021 is being managed by Walsh Construction.
Along with Capitol Hill’s waves of development — including these new projects that took shape in 2022 — come construction offices. For the Pride Place project, Walsh has made its home along E Pine in part of the old Seattle Central property lined up for this future YouthCare development. Inside are office spaces and work tables for the management of the nearly three year construction project. Meanwhile, in the parking lot around the corner, Walsh has set up fenced parking for its crews and a display showing off the materials that will be used on the Pride Place building’s finish and brightly colored window boxes.
A mock up of the building’s design can be found across the street (Image: CHS)
Nobody knows where the mirror hanging in the preserved old commercial structure came from but — for now — it is staying (Image: CHS)
(Image: CHS)
(Image: CHS)
(Image: CHS)
The roof won’t have resident access but will be covered with vegetation and solar panels (Image: CHS)
The building design was led by Environmental Works, a Hill-based nonprofit community design center. “We wanted to have randomized windows to show diversity and how the LGBTQ population…don’t have to stick with the mainstream,” Emma Johnston of Environmental Works told CHS at the project’s groundbreaking. “It’s really bringing forward the idea of being different and being exactly who you are. So, it’s not really uniform and rigid like a traditional building facade.”
In addition to 118 units of studio and one-bedroom apartments, the eight-story building will feature 3,800 square feet of commercial retail space and a 4,400-square-foot senior and health services center.
Inside, Pride Place is being built to match its communities with 14 of its units designed to meet the most accessible ADA requirements along with features like wider hallways and more railings.
Pride Place will be one of Seattle’s first “community preference” developments encouraging developers receiving city money to offer a portion of their affordable units to communities with ties to the neighborhood, particularly those with a high risk of displacement.” Community Roots Housing — then still under its original Capitol Hill Housing name — collaborated with Black and Central District focused groups to open the Liberty Bank Building, an equitable development and affordable housing project at 24th and Union, in 2019.
UPDATE: Community Roots Housing clarifies that Pride Place will utilize “affirmative marketing” but will not restrict leasing to queer-identifying seniors because of federal housing law. Instead, the developer and GenPride will market Pride Place openings to LGBTQ seniors who meet income requirements.
(Image: CHS)
Behind Pride Place
The idea to create housing and a senior center for LGBTQ elders has its roots in a 2018 study from the Goldsen Institute at the University of Washington. The report, entitled “Aging in Community: Addressing LGBTQ Inequities in Housing and Senior Services,” had been commissioned by the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing to examine the housing and service-related needs of LGBTQ older adults. The study surveyed more than 500 LGBTQ people aged 50 to 87 in Seattle and King County and found that 40% of older LGBTQ participants wanted to move, compared to only 13% in the general older adult population but faced significant barriers. Nearly a third reported experiencing discrimination based on their sexual orientation in the sale or rental of a house, apartment, or condominium. Those who moved within the past year, half had experienced homelessness and a third had experienced eviction within the past five years.
Rents at Pride Place will be affordable to households earning 30 to 60% of the area median income. A one-person household would need an income of around $24,300 to $48,600, or $27,800 to $72,400 for a two-person household to qualify.
The $52 million development is being funded through private and public investment. GenPride and Rise Together, a collaborative of six Seattle-area nonprofits working to create equitable developments, raised nearly $3 million to support the ground floor senior and health service center and were seeking to raise an additional $2 million toward the goal. The rest of the money is funded through a mix of $12.6 million in public funds, $13.5 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit bonding, a $9.4 million loan, and $2.1 million in equity from developer Community Roots Housing. The land for the building is the result of a complex four-way swap involving Sound Transit, Seattle Central and the state community college system, and Community Roots Housing.
The new building is replacing the long vacant Atlas Clothing building and the landmarked auto row-era Eldridge Tire Company building which had housed Tacos Guaymas and Folicle Hair Design. With the landmark designation, the new building is keeping the old Mission Revival-styled structure’s facade while preservation incentives help boost the project.
The Mission Revival elements have remained in place as the new building elements have risen around them. They stand right now looking a little like ruins — a weird mirror that nobody knows where it came from hangs tilted in one section of the old structure — but will eventually be incorporated into the new development. A change in the project’s design, meanwhile, calls for the new tiles to be added to the preservation structure’s roof to mimic the more classical earthen red than the more modern blue shown in earlier renderings of the building. As an affordable housing project that took shape during the height of pandemic restrictions, Pride Place was not subject to a full public design review.
Getting ready for a late summer opening
For Community Roots and GenPride, it is now time to begin spreading word about the new building across the city and begin the application process for new residents. Community Roots Housing also operates the neighboring Broadway Crossing building at Broadway and Pine. Meanwhile, it has another affordable project topping out this winter at 14th and Union where the Heartwood eight-story mass timber affordable housing development is under construction and also on pace for a 2023 opening.
For Walsh, the topping out at Pride Place represents a midpoint in the process that has been a special kind of urban challenge. The construction in the heart of Broadway has been a logistical puzzle for Walsh with a busy street and lots of passersby but the job is made a little easier by the development’s decision to forgo residential parking — without a massive underground lot, the work timeline didn’t need to include weeks of trucking away massive amounts of dirt.
UPDATE: Community Roots Housing also clarifies that parking in the project “was not a discretionary decision” because Pride Place is a transit-oriented development through the land swap involved Sound Transit.
Meanwhile, construction fencing that must be moved and adjusted daily to allow pedestrian access up and down Broadway lines the construction site.
Before the holidays, crews rushed to seal the top of the building with its new roof so the floors below could finally begin drying out from weeks of wet weather. Eventually, the building’s top will be nearly completely covered by photovoltaic cells and a vegetated roof while dozens of residents form a new community, and thousands visit for important services, below.
You can learn more about Pride Place at genprideseattle.org/prideplace/.
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A loud intersection full of nightlife is not where I’d want seniors living. This town has some of the worst planning ever
Depending on the age of the residents, they may not necessarily hear the noise!
The building is soooper sound proof.
I live in the tan building in the background. Yes, there is sirens a lot. The ambulance service, cop shop and fire trucks are 5 blocks away and the ambulance is right here. I moved from a rural area to the corner of Broadway and E. Pine. After about 2 months I didn’t even notice them. At night the sirens don’t blare. They all “chirp” their siren one time. The ladder truck is a bit “chirpier” but I have never in the years here woken up at night. It’s much much much quieter than I thought too. I was wrong. It is quiet and these building are engineered to be extra noise resistant.
Speaking of “nightlife”. First off….These are senior types. They are not out roaming the streets at night. They are not tagging or scaring old ladies. They are in couch lock. Secondly. The social “night club” is next door. So any “wondering in the night” will be next door or QFC 1/2 a block away. Or the streetcar that’s directly across the street. You simply don’t see the elderly out at night.
Also? This is a community that embraces them. The crosswalks are rainbows’. “Black Lives Matter” is painted on the street. Stuff like that. There’s a large black brown and every other crayon community. It’s incredibly safe. Even the homeless are embraced. Everyone is cool here. And any crime is always a gang on gang thing. Homeless on homeless thing . Nobody is purse snatching. Innocent folks are caught up in it once in a great great while. True that. But for the population mass and diversity it is safe.
Also? Everywhere you go is security. Every place you’d go down here has security.
What downtown was during the pandemic is not what it is now. Things are getting better every day and time takes time. I am in a CRH building and my opinion is CRH rocks. They truly care about their tenants, I am not kidding. It’s an incredibly stressful job and they do a fantastic job meeting people where they are with resources in and around the building. With handicapped specifically built apartments for disabled folks.
I could go on, but you get it. I just disagree is all. And the best way to solve the crime thing is solve the problems associated with crime. Build the community that’s diverse. Have all needed services provided on site.
It’s sad the opinions you express. I live next door and could hardly even think of a place anywhere they’d be more comfortable.
Was so excited to hear about this project when it was first proposed. Being a retired senior member of Seattle’s gay community I’m looking for such housing. However, I feeling this is a poor location for a retirement center. They were originally looking at 14th and Union. a much better area. guess I’ll have to keep looking.
On paper, with a Walgreens on one end of the block and a QFC less than a block in the other direction, and bus stops nearby, it’s ideal for older folks. In practice, maybe not so much…
If you were disabled? C’mon man. Seriously? All other services are on site. What apartments do that? Name one…I’ll wait.
I hope you are being sarcastic. I live next door. In the tan building. It’s a fantastic place to live.
I suspect that after this building opens it might change the character of the surrounding area in a way that you’d like.
I think we will look back in a few years and wonder how we could be building housing with public dollars that favors one specific group of people for inclusion over others who are similarly situated with regard to income. You can call it ‘preferential’ but it’s actually discriminatory. Unless your building similar housing for a purely hetero population of seniors you can’t really get to a different conclusion honestly. So build the senior housing because it’s needed, but drop the discrimination.
TL;DR: Tell us you aren’t familiar with the longstanding and widespread evidence of discrimination against LGBTQ seniors in existing senior housing, necessitating projects like these, without telling us.
(So it seems unlikely that this will be seen as ‘discriminatory’ in a few years. Perhaps in a few decades, sure.)
brilliant! I live in that tan building. I seriously can’t think of a more welcoming place.
“Similar housing for a purely hetero population” is most senior housing in existence, and it tends to force queer seniors back in the closet when they don’t have another option to turn to. Constantly having to hide who you are, watch what you say and how you act has enormous negative effects on mental and physical health. Pride Place is an LGBTQIA+ affirming place where seniors won’t have to hide who they are. It’s about creating an option for better outcomes, not “preferential” treatment.
The housing you refer to is built for anyone, not just hetero residents. It is not discriminatory, and in fact, is prevented by law from operating in a discriminatory manner. Are some people less comfortAble in that housing? Perhaps. But the the model does not exclude certain groups from residency. And the preference I referred to is the ‘community preference ‘ approach spoken of in the article, Building housing with public dollars to house preferred communities is discrimination to me. Let’s all figure out how we can fund housing and live together.
Ok, Glenn, but you’re ignoring that the “built for everyone” status quo approach is not actually working for everyone (see the widespread reports of discrimination in senior housing based on sexual orientation referenced in the article). So maybe it’s time to try different approaches. If you want to challenge it in court, have at it.
This project does not take away housing from straight seniors. So maybe, in keeping with your own advice on figuring out how to “live together,” you should try to accept that something good for other people in your community is not necessarily something bad for you.
I am not adversely affected by any of this, other than as a taxpayer whose dollars are being used for this purpose, and am actually concerned that this is bad for our community. And we don’t have an unlimited supply of lower income senior housing, so preferencing LBTQ seniors in this project necessarily deprives others, including straight seniors, of low income housing.
You seriously don’t get it. When you say “our community”, what precisely is that “community”? Is it E Pine and Broadway or somewhere else? You clearly care about people of all varienty.
Straight people can live there, they just do so knowing that it’s an LGBTQ+ friendly place. Affirming does not equal only
Exactly! It would only be discriminatory if only gay seniors were accepted into residence there.
As a private sector landlord I am prohibited from advertising my apartments to any preferred group, whether that be Amazon employees or ‘families’, because it is considered by law to be discriminatory. Fair enough. But in this instance you state it would only be discriminatory if only gay seniors were accepted into residence there. By that logic I should be able to advertise my apartments buildings to Amazon employees as my preferred residents, and as long as a few non-Amazon employees live there I wouldn’t be discriminating. Do I have that right?
Well, I don’t know why you would do that, because you would be excluding many potential tenants. But, yes, if you explicitly accepted only Amazon employees, and excluded everyone else, you obviously would be discriminting.
You absolutely can advertise “gay friendly” etc. They are discriminating against non seniors too yunno? You see what we are saying?
So thrilled about this! What an outstanding way to give back to all the queer elders who fought so hard for so long for us to have the ability to be out and proud, and in somewhat affordable housing. Even tho Broadway is busy, it has the historical context of representing the gayborhood over the years ( well since gentrification of the previous residence on the hill in the 80’s) In any event , so grateful for the queer elders and hope you all settle in well over at Pride Place
I live in the tan building and could not agree more. I love the part about the older folks who fought so hard. I can’t think of a better place. Their entire world is 1/2 a block or less away from the front door. It’s self evident. The gay club is next door and the crosswalks are painted in rainbows. for Pete’s sake. I am a straight USMC vet and I can’t wait to meet my new neighbors out and about while doing errands. Like I mentioned above. They community dresses the place up around here. I live on the corner of E Pine and Broadway above the Walgreens entrance. And all the druggin’ and “criming” these folks imagine goes on here (they don’t live here or know what Community Roots Housing is) I am a CRH tenant next door and it was an amazing experience moving in and equally amazing as a tenant.
“On CHS’s visit last month to the work site on Broadway between Pike and Pine,”
It’s on EAST Pine, not “Pine”. It’s East Pike as well.
Seems redundant given the Broadway element but I’m glad you didn’t get lost, Smooth
There’s both E Pine and simply “Pine”. They should all say “E Pine” so proof the whole deal and you’ll see em’.
I deeply appreciate this blog. It’s all I need to make my little world more familiar and informed. Y’all do a brilliant job and I brag about you to my friends. Seriously, I do…lol
Also fun fact. I live in the tan building next to the new one. I think we can all agree it’s desperately needed. All the services in one on campus. We can all agree the sooner it’s done the happier we’ll all be…lol I am a straight dude. But I am really stoked that it’ll be a LGBTQ friendly spot. Dress the place up a little.
Really people? If it doesn’t work for you do live here! But for many it is better then what have now. It’s That simple