(Image: Environmental Works)

By Renee Raketty

The Broadway block between Pike and Pine that has seen so much of queer life and history on Seattle’s Capitol Hill hosted something new Friday afternoon: a groundbreaking ceremony for Pride Place, an affordable housing development dedicated to serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer seniors. 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.

“I think it’s going to be a real center of LGBTQ life, both for seniors and also our midlife folks. We’re really hoping to make an intergenerational connection here at Pride Place,” explained Steven Knipp, executive director of GenPride. “We’re also asking a lot of our partners to come in and bring their communities. So, we’re really trying to make this a collaborative community effort, space and home for people to come and just be yourself.”

The development is the result of a collaborative effort of GenPride, a nonprofit serving LGBTQ older adults, and Community Roots Housing, a low-income housing provider.

Around 100 people gathered for Friday’s ceremony hosted by Seattle drag personality Aleksa Manila, and featuring speeches from politicians and important project partners alike. Seattle City Council President and mayoral candidate Lorena González joined King County Council Vice-Chair Joe McDermott, state Sen. Jamie Pedersen and state Rep. Nicole Macri for the groundbreaking.

Macri, who has been involved in the project for the last six years both as a lawmaker and Capitol Hill resident, hopes the senior and health service center will not only benefit the entire King County region but “provide inspiration for how smaller communities can also create new spaces” across the state of Washington. “This is one of the very few community events I’ve done during the pandemic and, so, it is really just heartwarming and energizing to be here with other people, particularly other folks from the neighborhood and from the LGBTQ community to come together. Never underestimate what the LGBTQ community in Seattle can accomplish. This is really inspirational.”

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“It was so important for me to be here today because what we’re doing is really celebrating the first of many steps to build community,” González said. “This space here used to be a parking lot and now it’s going to be LGBTQ senior affirming housing and an actual center for the LGBTQ community. It is right here in the heart of Capitol Hill. Just so happy to be here, to be an ally, and to celebrate this really important moment.”

Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen of the Goldsen Institute in the University of Washington’s School of Social Work, Emily Alvarado of the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing, Shalimar Gonzales of Solid Ground, and Chris Persons of Community Roots Housing also took part. One-by-one they shoveled different colored sand into a raised sandbox to create a rainbow. The audience cheered after each new shovel of sand.

“I was really holding back the tears. Looking at all the familiar faces reminded me of my connection to the community being intergenerational and having lived here for over half of my life,” Manila told CHS. “Having this place — as an LGBTQ person — means a lot to me knowing that when I get even older, that I have a place to go to that I can call home. We already know there’s not a lot of resources for LGBTQ elders.

“We’re just beginning to fully understand the lifespan of LGBTQ people because for so very long, huge aspects of our existence were judged, criminalized and forgotten. To recognize a physical structure, a landmark, a symbol of who we are and who we are going to be is just so wonderful. Knowing what this used to be and what’s been around it; this kind of change is what we need… This is about keeping the community as fabulous as it used to be, is in the present, and will be into the future.”

Pedersen agrees that the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle is the appropriate home for Pride Place. He described the project as a “welcome change” and “contrast” after a year of “protests around police accountability and police violence” that led to property destruction and division within the residents of Capitol Hill.

“This project is about both the past and the future. This has been the center of the gay community,” he said. “It is likely to continue to be the heart of the gay community — whether people live here, we hope that people continue to live here for generations to come — or whether they come here kind of as a destination to all of the institutions that we have built and continue to build here. I think that we’re seeing a real center develop in this area — from the GSBA offices down to the AIDS Memorial pathway, to the park, and the community center here. It’s great. We’ll probably keep this as a center of the [gay] community.”

The $52 million development is funded through private and public investment. GenPride and Rise Together, a collaborative of six Seattle-area nonprofits working together to create equitable developments, have raised $2.7 million to support the ground floor senior and health service center and is still seeking to raise an additional $2 million toward its 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. As CHS previously reported, 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.

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.

The planned building will take up two parcels: the long vacant Atlas Clothing building and the landmarked auto row-era Eldridge Tire Company building which has housed Tacos Guaymas and Folicle Hair Design. With the landmark designation, the new building will keep the old Mission Revival-styled structure’s facade while preservation incentives help boost the project.

The name for the coming Broadway building, Pride Place, was the result of an advisory process that included they city’s leading LGBTQ focused communty groups. 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,” said Emma Johnston of Environmental Works. “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.”

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.

The study 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.

“Pride Place is needed because we know that LGBTQ older adults are at risk of social isolation in later life. They built these communities. They are very resilient. We did find that many have age based peers… but as people get older, friends may no longer be able to help,” said Fredriksen-Goldsen, the study’s author. “They end up often very socially isolated and alone. This is a way to age in community, not age — potentially — alone or with less support. It’s been shown that many LGBTQ older adults in old age feel like they have to go back into the closet. This is a way to be able to create affirming and supportive housing where people can be themselves; their true selves.

“Housing’s a crisis in Seattle. So, this community, like many others, experienced greater risk of housing displacement. We found that it was important to act and develop housing.”

Knipp added that “the invisibility that Karen talked about will begin to get chipped away” and that Pride Place will become a “very high profile place….where a lot of folks will just feel like they’re no longer isolated and forgotten.”

“That’s really why I think this project is so important; because we have forgotten our seniors. I think that’s really a crime,” he said. “Our seniors were so instrumental in getting us where we’re at as a community… all the way from Stonewall, to marriage, and acceptance. So, I really feel as though those folks need to be lifted up. We need to hear their stories. I need to find out the kinds of things that they went through to get to this point and really to lift them up.”

Rents at Pride Place will be affordable to households earning 30-60% of the area median income. Therefore, a one-person household would need an income of approximately $24,300 to $48,600, or $27,800 to $72,400 for a two-person household.

The groundbreaking of Pride Place was carried live on the GenPride website and is available for later viewing at GenPrideSeattle.org. GenPride also continues to take donations to raise capital for Pride Place on their website.

Construction is expected to take under two years with the first residents joining the building in early 2023.

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