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.”
In addition to its 94 units of market rate apartments, The Central is also home to Tacos Chukis, the US Post Office, and the Squirrel Chops coffee shop. The Stencil retail tenant mix includes Feed Co, Union Coffee, Lowrider Baking, and fashion retailer Cura.
For now, Lake Union Partners continues to hold the East Union building, home to PCC, and the under-construction Midtown Square development. How does it see its role in long term ownership at the corner?
“One never knows for sure because things come up,” Foley said. “Over the years we have had some interest from people who like the area and inquired about investing in the neighborhood, but MidTown Public Square has a longer term outlook for us. We are just finishing up the project and it is a long way from being stabilized. There is a lot of work to do to get the commercial shops and the Public Square just right. We are trying to live up to what we told the neighborhood we would do several years ago, and that is going to take some time to get it right.”
Redevelopment of 23rd and Union has taken years and has been a flashpoint in debates over the future of the neighborhood. In 2017, development on the block went through preliminary design review under a developer previous to current owner Lake Union Partners. A previous deal for the block got off to a rough start as the design review board rejected the first design plan for the Midtown Center block for a project from national developers Lennar Multifamily Communities and Regency Centers.
The rejection was soon a moot point when the deal for the big developers to purchase the property fell off the table. In 2017,Lake Union Partners stepped in with $23.25M to pull together a project on the core block of the Central District. As part of the Midtown deal, Lake Union agreed to sell 20% of the block to Forterra, transferring the property into Africatown’s Community Land Trust for development of a 100% affordable project on the south end of the Midtown block.
Africatown Plaza, with plans for 130 affordable units, is planned to break ground in coming months.
Midtown Square will also provide a portion of its units to lower income renters. Under the city’s Mandatory Housing Affordability program and the Multi-Family Tax Exemption Program, the development will include around 30% — 138 units — affordable housing for households earning between $40,000 and $65,000 per year or 60% to 85% of area-median income.
Counted with the plans for Africatown Plaza, Foley says that puts the redeveloped block at 50% affordable.
“I am happy that we helped play a role in bringing almost 270 affordable units to this location that didn’t exist 24 months ago,” Foley said. “We are big believers in mixed-income projects and will always do that whenever we can. Our commercial shops are intentionally below market rents so we have been able to recruit the kinds of shops the neighborhood has asked for, and we hope it will ultimately be a gathering place for all and brings people for different reasons.”
Changes to the retail and commercial mix in the development will also help address displacement worries, the developers and partners hope. Bartell Drugs had originally been planned to occupy the centerpiece retail space on the corner of 23rd and Union with a mix of smaller, more neighborhood focused retail and restaurant spaces surrounding the inner square.
But corporate shifts and pandemic challenges mean a big retailer is no longer an option to anchor the development’s retail and food and drink plans.
When it opens, the ring of smaller businesses will still be in the mix Midtown Square’s key ground floor tenant facing 23rd and Union will be an arts center and shop from Arté Noir, the nonprofit focused on “Black art, artists, and culture,” that also helped the development select nine artists to create installations and giant murals that now adorn the seven-story buildings. CHS reported here on the design review-directed art plans for the project hoped to help the Weinstein A|U-designed buildings better reflect the culture and the history of the Central District.
CHS reached out to Vivian Phillips of Arté Noir who said she will have more to say about the new arts space in coming weeks.
Foley and Lake Union Partners say the loss of a potential major anchor retailer is offset and exceeded by the partnership with Arté Noir.
“Sometimes things work out for the best,” Foley said.
“All of the beautiful faces on the building are people who built the Central District, and honoring them through art from locals is really wonderful,” Foley said.
Still, there is likely more to do. While Mandatory Housing Affordability and community pressure helped create new housing on the block that will create hundreds of new affordable units, Seattle has already moved forward on more direct paths to addressing displacement including “community preference” developments like Pride Place and its plans for LGBTQ-affirming senior housing on Broadway.
King County’s Anti-displacement Strategies Report (PDF) documents additional, possibly more direct strategies including a Right of First Return to give municipalities or tenants the opportunity to bid on a property before it is sold, new property tax exemptions, and priority hire programs the emphasize hiring employees from the communities new development usually will displace.
For Midtown Square, time will tell if its particular mix of market-rate plus affordable housing forged only a few years ago reaches any of those anti-displacement goals.
“One project can’t solve all problems but small steps are a good start,” Foley said.
UPDATE: Africatown Community Land Trust CEO Wyking Garrett says what is happening with the commercial mix in Midtown Square and with Lake Union’s property sales is both illustrative of equity and anti-displacement goals in the area, and proof that more can be done.
“The community definitely wants to wants to see more Black ownership, equity and benefit at this historic epicenter of Black business, culture, community and struggle,” Garrett tells CHS. “If properties can be sold to out of state real estate investors why can’t local community have greater stake?”
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That neighborhood is less than 10% black. It has a rich history that goes far beyond it’s relatively short time as a predominantly black neighborhood. The treatment of the Japanese and Natives in the neighborhood was far more oppressive than the redlining that black people experienced. Yet the rich history of every other group in the neighborhood is written out of History in favor of a black nationalist narrative that at times has been history revisionism. I am wondering when other demographics are going to get the focus and City funds directed towards them that we currently see the African Community getting. Many of these folks getting it are new arrivals to Seattle (and sometimes this country) so claiming that they faced generational oppression in that neighborhood is a bit rich.
Very weird post. It’s less black because people were redlined in and BLACK BALLED out!
You’re making this about whether Group A was oppressed more than Group B, when the real focus should be whether a drugstore or arts organization is a better fit for the development and community. Sure, our neighborhood has a long and varied history, but I know a group of folks that are pretty good at digging into these details – Artists. Black, indigenous, Japanese, Jewish and every other combination of nationality, religion and gender represent the greater “us”. I am very pro-art and think this will be a great addition to the area!
Acting like black folks had any other choice is rich. This comment is insanely racist. Maybe they never heard of redlining. You can’t HIDE THAT YOU’RE BLACK! I dislike this comment a lot. Sorry I’m heated a bit…
You also know black people are oppressed the minute they leave Africa and basically while IN AFRICA too. Are you trolling????
Holy shit. So the Red lining of the CD, that kept black people “contained” and poor… followed by gentrification, that pushed black people out once the white neighborhoods were full… is all OK. Because after all, the Japanese and Indigenous Americans were poorly treated before them.
Way better use of space! Bravo!
This is a great addition to the neighborhood. Kudos to Lake Union Partners for supporting local small business and Africatown for successful advocacy for development that builds community and culture rather than displaces it.
I think there’s a small typo?
“For now, Lake Union Partners continues to hold The Central building, home to PCC“
The PCC building is called “East Union”
Thanks, yes. Fixing.
Ugh I was kind of looking forward to a local Bartells
???? there’s a Walgreen’s down the street. And Bartell’s is just Rite Aid now so….
You mean a mile away at 23/jackson? You know, not everyone has a car.
Does Walgreens not deliver?
Express Scripts? GoodRX?
For those with mobility issues, I can see that having a drugstore nearby would be a help.
But for the rest: If a 2 mile round trip on foot is intimidating, you really do need to get out more.
You mean the Walgreen’s where folks are harassed in the parking lot? The one where folks are shot and gunshots are fired fairly frequently?
Pandering.
I was really, really looking forward to that Bartell’s.
Damn, we need a Bartell’s there.
Without a good anchor the small shops will suffer.
The point of having a major anchor store like Bartell’s is to bring in consistent commercial traffic to help all of the other commercial tenants. You want something to regularly draw shoppers to the anchor store and then they start exploring and learning about the other smaller, locally owned options at the site.