Village Gardens — Seattle’s first ‘Community Preference’ homes — ready to hit Central District real estate market

(Image: Village Gardens)

(Image: Village Gardens)

The expansion of light rail to the Eastside and opening of Judkins Park Station may be slightly delayed but growth and development in the area has already moved quickly ahead. A development on Yakima Ave S and a 15 minute walk from the station is hoped to help provide new homes for buyers to help slow displacement and rising costs in the area.

Mayor Bruce Harrell was on hand last week to cut the ribbon in front of the new Village Gardens development where ten of the new homes are reserved for income-restricted buyers and six are being sold at market rate in a project built on land provided by the City of Seattle for affordable housing, and funded by a public investment of $2.3 million including $1.2 million from the Seattle Housing Levy.

The homes will be the first in the city to be sold under Community Preference Policy, creating opportunity for those with historic ties to the neighborhood the first opportunity to purchase. Continue reading

Mount Zion on 19th affordable senior housing project receives state funding boost

The state will give a more than $1 million boost to a senior housing project currently under construction on 19th Ave and hoped to help address displacement in the Central District.

The Mount Zion on 19th project was awarded $1,025,768 by the Washington State Department of Commerce announced as part of $18.6 million for 16 projects supporting the development of more than 1,500 affordable housing units across the state.

The property on 19th Ave just north of Madison is being developed by the housing arm of the nearby Mount Zion Baptist Church. The property was previously occupied by the church’s Price Arms apartments, a two-story, four-unit apartment building that county tax records indicate was built in 1901.

Plans call for a six-stories above ground and one below in a design from Rolluda Architects. The seven-story building include 10 studios, 50 one-bedroom units and a single two-bedroom unit. There will be seven parking stalls and 12 bike parking spaces. The plan also includes space for group meetings or activities, and a roof deck.

The housing is going to be rented at prices designed to be affordable to people making between 30% and 60% of the area median income with some of the units set aside for veterans.

The state funding comes in the form of Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program (CHIP) grants that can provide up to $2.5 million for “sewer, water or stormwater improvements and/or waived system development charges for new affordable housing projects.”

Mount Zion, which also owns other land in the area around 19th and Madison, also has major plans for its main church property as part of a long-term planning process that created a framework for “a major expansion of new and existing structures.”

The 19th Ave project broke ground in October and is expected to be completed in winter of 2023.

The new building will add to options for seniors hoping to continue living in the central city. Pride Place, an eight-story affordable housing development dedicated to serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer seniors with 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, is under construction on Broadway between Pike and Pine.

 

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Africatown Plaza — a ‘cultural anchor’ against ‘the tide of displacement in the Central District’ — to break ground at 23rd and Spring

(Image: Africatown Plaza)

A community groundbreaking ceremony Saturday will mark the start of construction on Africatown Plaza, the 100% affordable mixed-use development set to rise and fill in the southern end of the Midtown Square block with a project from the Africatown Community Land Trust and Community Roots Housing.

“Africatown Plaza will continue a legacy of community building on the site of the former Umoja PEACE Center, the grassroots, Black-led community organization where the Africatown Seattle movement began over a decade ago,” the announcement of Saturday’s event reads.

Africatown Plaza Groundbreaking
Saturday, February 05, 2022
12:00 pm
23rd and Spring

The groundbreaking will be emceed by TraeAnna Holiday and will feature DJ Zeta Barber, Javoeon Byrd of Awodi Drumming, performances of the Black National Anthem and a spoken word piece. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, Representative Kirstin Harris-Talley, Councilman Girmay Zahilay, and leaders on the project are expected to deliver remarks.

The organizations say the planned seven-story mixed use development is an extension of the partnership between Africatown and Community Roots that builds on their previous collaboration in the Liberty Bank Building at 24th and Union which opened four years ago in what many hope will be a model for equitable development in the Central District and Seattle.

Africatown Plaza is “an effort to build another cultural anchor and stem the tide of displacement in the Central District,” the organizations say. Continue reading

Also at Midtown Square, 138 affordable units and an All the Best Pet Care

A promotion picture for the new Midtown Square apartment units. Of the more than 400 units available, 138 are income restricted (Image: Midtown Square)

(Image: All The Best Pet Care)

What goes into developing a for-profit, mixed-use apartment complex in the core of Seattle and a neighborhood with communities striving to address crises around displacement and gentrification? CHS reported details today of Midtown Square’s unique anchor tenant — Arté Noir arts center — at the center of the project.

But the development will also fill simpler needs in the area. The latest new business joining the project will make residents lined up for the pet-friendly apartment units and surrounding neighbors with furry friends happy. Construction permits have been filed for a new All The Best Pet Care to join the 23rd Ave side of the project. The chain has 15 other locations around the city including one on E Madison.

The new shop will join Arté Noir and a mix of neighborhood and BIPOC-owned businesses including a second location of the Jerk Shack Caribbean restaurant on the edge of the development’s internal plaza, So Beautiful Salon from Shavonne Bland, a Central District resident and Garfield High grad, along 23rd Ave, a new home for Raised Doughnuts on 24th Ave, and a new home for neighborhood bar The Neighbor Lady.

Meanwhile, leasing has begun on Midtown Square’s 428 market-rate and affordable apartment units, surrounding a quasi-public central plaza, and above a huge underground parking garage. Continue reading

Arté Noir arts center creating a space to grow ‘Black art, artists, and culture’ at 23rd and Union

This work from artist Takiyah Ward will grace the development’s central square — “A past, present, future timeline of what was, what is and what can be if people look to humanity and treat their neighbors as they would themselves want to be treated. To tell the colorful history of this block with images and words that have stood the tests of time and aided in the perseverance of all who encounter them. To tell the truth of our past, live in our present and set intentions for the future.” (Image: Midtown Square)

Myron Curry’s portraits — including this image of CD legend DeCharlene Williams of the Central Area Chamber of Commerce and D’Charlene’s — grace the building’s 23rd Ave-facing street front (Image: Midtown Square)

Construction is nearly complete on the Midtown Square apartment complex. Leasing for the mix of market rate and affordable apartments is beginning. And Arté Noir, a new Central District arts center focused on “Black art, artists, and culture,” is getting ready to fill the core ground floor commercial space, a one of a kind “anchor tenant” for the new development.

“Honing in on the vision, creating a business structure that takes us from a lease to ownership at the end of the lease, and raising the needed funds to support the plan we have for creating a permanent home for Black arts and culture in a reparative wealth generating structure, have all been challenging,” founder and editor-in-chief of Arté Noir Vivian Phillips said.

With the launch of an online magazine in May 2021, Arté Noir formed as a way to bring attention to the city’s creators and is now preparing to bring the same spirit to a real world center with room for art, artists, and the community.

Arté Noir seeks to contribute to Black culture in the Central District. “Being from the Central District and having watched the numerous changes, I want the message to be that Black culture remains a significant part of the foundation and fabric of this community,” Phillips said.

CHS reported late last year on the unique set of circumstances that led developer Lake Union Partners to tab Phillips and the arts center and gallery plan for the Midtown project’s key retail space after years of planning for a major drugstore chain. Continue reading

Low Income Housing Institute and New Hope Community Development Institute team to purchase S Jackson apartment building

(Image: Low Income Housing Institute)

The New Hope Community Development Institute’s work to preserve affordable housing and prevent displacement in the Central District will include the acquisition of a S Jackson development in a $15.3 million deal.

The Low Income Housing Institute and New Hope Community Development Institute announced the acquisition of Squire Park Plaza late last month from Jonathan Rose Companies.

“The purchase of Squire Park Plaza will ensure that it’s 60 apartments are preserved for long-term affordability. Currently many of the existing households are struggling to pay their rent during the pandemic,” LIHI executive director Sharon Lee said in the announcement.

According to the announcement, more than 75% of the residents at Squire Park Plaza are people of color.

“We are delighted to partner with the Low Income Housing Institute to purchase Squire Park Plaza as affordable housing,” New Hope’s Rev. Robert Jeffrey said. “The goal of New Hope Community Development Institute is to prevent the displacement of people of color from Seattle’s Central Area and to acquire properties to preserve long-term.” Continue reading

Why this Central District development will have a new Black arts center — not a Bartell’s — at its 23rd and Union core

The seven stories of Midtown Square along E Union (Image: CHS)

A new Arté Noir arts center will anchor the development’s 23rd and Union corner

Lake Union Partners has made a $70 million deal to sell two of the buildings it created around 23rd and Union just as the firm’s key development project at the corner is nearing the end of construction and will open with a challenging mission as a for-profit development shaped to try to address displacement and affordability concerns in the Central District. A new Black arts center now envisioned as the centerpiece commercial tenant in the building will help.

“My hope is that Midtown Square will be viewed as a project that was done with sincerity and purpose, and took an incremental step in helping to curb the affordability issue in the area and was the catalyst to welcome back people to the neighborhood who moved away years ago,” Patrick Foley of Lake Union Partners tells CHS. “At a minimum we want all people to feel welcome at Midtown Square.”

Construction is wrapping up on the project that now fills the site of the former Midtown Center shopping strip with a three-piece, seven-story mixed-use apartment development and plans for 428 market-rate and affordable apartment units, a quasi-public central plaza, and a huge underground parking garage.

Foley said the progress on Midtown Center is unrelated to the huge deal for LUP to sell off two of its four properties around the corner as it sheds both the 42-unit Stencil development at 24th and Union and 23rd and Union’s southwest corner The Central in a $440,000 per unit agreement with developer Prometheus, the largest private owner of apartment properties in the Bay Area, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal who broke the news.

Prometheus was originally lined up to acquire only The Central, Foley says, but made a strong offer for the smaller Stencil, too. The cash will help Lake Union Partners with a “philanthropy opportunity,” and other projects Lake Union is “working on in Seattle that have capital investment needs.” Continue reading

How Mandatory Housing Affordability and Seattle’s congested growth made this Central District pot shop the hottest property on the block — UPDATE

Ponder and its mixed-use neighbor, the Stencil development (Image: Ponder)

One of the few coveted parcels in the city that can be licensed for marijuana retail has hit the real estate market in the Central District but demand for the property isn’t being driven by pot entrepreneurs, Ponder owner John Branch tells CHS.

“It has appreciated to the point that retail isn’t a good use,” Branch said about this small stretch of E Union between 24th and 25th Avenues that the Ponder shop calls home. “Increased housing, mixed with retail on the lower floor,” that’s what is coming next, the pot shop owner says.

Seattle’s marijuana real estate boom is faded. The growing city’s other addiction is tough to outpace. The demand for new housing development has driven Branch and Pete Sikov, the real estate investor he owns the property with, to put the Ponder shop and the neighboring single family style house they purchased next door on the market for $3.15 million. They purchased the properties seven years ago for a combined $1.2 million and change.

“This is a unique opportunity to obtain one of the last remaining large parcels in a location where demand for development is at a premium,” the Windermere sales pitch reads: Continue reading

Council approves resolution supporting New Hope Community Development Institute effort to create affordable housing, condemn redlining history in the Central District

The Seattle City Council, urged on by District 3 representative Kshama Sawant’s office, passed a resolution Monday pledging support for a Central District affordable housing project that is hoped to right a wrong in the city’s past actions against Black property owners in the neighborhood.

Monday, the council voted 8-0 in favor of the resolution calling for support for funding for the New Hope Community Development Institute, the group working to develop new housing near 21st and Fir’s New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

Rev. Dr. Robert Jeffrey Sr.’s op-ed in the Seattle Times documents the city’s “urban renewal project” and redlining in the 1960s that ripped away property from the church: Continue reading

Design review: The Central District’s Acer House and its Afrofuturist plans at 23rd and Cherry

(Image: CHS)

Imagine this: five-and-a-half stories of apartments in an Afrofuturist design on 23rd and Cherry with thousands of square feet of childcare and other retail spaces with a public courtyard. Of the 120 apartments, which range in size from about 400-square-foot studios to two-bedroom units between 700 and 800, 30% would be reserved for low-income residents.

Thursday night, the proposed Acer House project will move forward with its first pass through the Seattle design review process:


2210 E Cherry St

Design Review Early Design Guidance for a 5-story, 120-unit apartment building with 4 live-work units, childcare, and retail. No parking proposed. Project relies on a contract rezone. View Design Proposal  (23 MB)    

Review Meeting: June 10, 2021 5:00 PM

Meeting: https://bit.ly/Mtg3037717 Listen Line: 206-207-1700 Passcode: 187 663 1617
Comment Sign Up: https://bit.ly/Comments3037717

Review Phase: EDG–Early Design Guidance

Project Number: 3037717  View Related Records

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Planner: David Sachs — Email comments to [email protected]


Kateesha Atterberry, founder of the Urban Black commercial property management firm working on the development, says the team wants a childcare provider focused on “Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics.” Commercial spaces will likely include the existing Flowers Just 4 U, which might be the only Black-owned florist in the Pacific Northwest, with Atterberry saying she would additionally like to see a recording studio and other artists in the five micro retail spaces for small businesses.

On top of the housing affordability, Atterberry also hopes the project, known as Acer House, can be commercially affordable.

“Creating vibrant communities where businesses can thrive and contribute to the local economy is dependent upon them being able to afford the spaces they are in,” Atterberry told CHS in an email. “Our goal is to provide affordable leasing terms and access to resources for additional support. We believe in partnering with businesses to ensure their success because their success is our success.” Continue reading