Tag Archives: displacement

As Seattle debates 20-year growth plan, mayor issues order hoped to strengthen $45M in anti-displacement spending

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As his administration bolsters its political will to update Seattle’s growth plan and address the region’s housing affordability crisis, Mayor Bruce Harrell issued an executive order Wednesday hoped to strengthen the city’s anti-displacement strategies.

The order includes five components hoped to address Harrell’s focus on helping existing homeowners in challenged communities hold onto their family properties while also bolstering Tenant Relocation Assistance, Economic Displacement Relocation Assistance, and Emergency Rental Assistance programs, and doing more to track housing statistics at displacement’s core: Continue reading →

Closure in the Central District: Jackson’s Catfish Corner

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(Image: Jackson’s Catfish Corner)

40 years of the family business came to an end in the Central District last week with a final 50 pounds of catfish as Terrell Jackson and Jackson’s Catfish Corner called it quits.

“My grandparents started this business in January 1985. This is now 40 years of business. 40 years of business and I just cannot do it anymore,” Jackson said in a heartfelt video posted to the 23rd and Jackson restaurant owner’s social media last Friday. “I don’t have the team, the structure, I don’t have nothing right now. Just doing shit on my own is very hard and I don’t, I think I just think I did all I can do in Seattle, you know what I’m saying?”

In the announcement, Jackson invited regulars by for a last po boy or two at the joint he opened at the corner in 2021 after years of pop-ups and smaller projects carrying on his family’s Catfish Corner legacy, saying he had about 50 pounds of catfish left, 20 or so burgers, and some oysters and calamari.

The final ingredients really were about all Jackson had left to give.

“I don’t want this to be a sad time or heartbreak time or ‘what are you gonna do next’ time. It’s that I did all I can time. I did all I can,” Jackson said, saying he was “maxed out” and ready to look for new opportunities.

The walls of Jackson’s Catfish Corner were a testament to its popularity, covered up and down in signatures of customers.

In an interview with Converge Media, Jackson said the Central District’s changes and the costs of doing business in Seattle caught up with him, citing the jump in the minimum wage and lower than expected foot traffic due to the neighborhood’s changing demographics. Continue reading →

As Seattle considers its next growth plan, The Sarah Queen set to rise at 23rd and Union

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Plans are moving forward again for a mixed-use development that will replace a 23rd Ave church on the edge of a busy center of Central District growth.

New filings show plans for The Sarah Queen project are gearing up for required outreach before the public design review kicks off for the development planned to create 112 new apartment homes above street level commercial or live-work space and underground parking for about 20 vehicles. The building could rise seven or eight stories depending on the review process, zoning decisions, and the final design.

The new paperwork kicks a project that first took shape at the start of the pandemic into motion and continues hopes that Black-owned development can also be part of the growth in the Central District in addition to new buildings raised by affordable housing developers and nonprofit organizations like Africatown. Continue reading →

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

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(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

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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

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(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

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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

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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

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(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

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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 →