Not everything built on Capitol Hill will be a mixed-use apartment building. Here are two in-the-works projects that will bring a different kind of change to their respective neighborhoods. One will create a space for people in need suffering from mental illnesses while another will help a longtime Capitol Hill religious institution expand its educational facilities.
- — Announced over the holidays as part of $19.5 million in funding for low-income housing, the City of Seattle is earmarking up to $1.85 million in support for this Community House Mental Health Agency facility being planned for the corner of Boylston and Republican. The Caroline W. Apartments are being planned as a 45-unit facility to provide housing and services for people suffering from long-term mental illness.
The six-story project that will replace two dilapidated houses currently standing at the corner a block from the Capitol Hill library and two blocks from the bustling Broadway must still pass through the city’s design process before construction.
Community House clients meet at the Broadway Starbucks (Image: Community House Mental Health Agency)
The $1.85 million grant will be part of some $3.9 million in public funding the mental health service is planning for the project that will provide long-term support and services onsite. Community House is already active on the Hill including a facility on 16th Ave but the Caroline W. project will become its largest facility in the area when completed. The organization acquired the property in 2007 for $625,000, according to county records.
In 2008, the Seattle Times reported that lack of funding from the county forced Community House to close two Capitol Hill facilities housing 102 people.
- — The 18th Ave E facility that houses Capitol Hill’s St. Joseph’s School is on track for a 4,400 square-foot expansion.
Here is the rendering of the project — “Construction of a 2nd story and a religious tower to an existing 1-story plus basement building” — provided by the school in a letter recently sent to neighbors of the parish:
The school’s principal Patrick Fennessy explained the project:
“This project also allows us to create a central entrance for our buildings and improve our first-floor office space,” Fennessy writes.
If the plans are approved by the city, construction at the school will begin this summer and should be wrapped up by spring 2014.
