Projects in Progress

KCHA has created or preserved over 7,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing since 2000. These projects range from newly built rental housing and apartment acquisitions to for-sale homes, mobile home park development, and repositioning. This housing serves families with children, seniors, and people with special needs.

Current Development Projects

Acquisitions
Buying and rehabbing existing properties helps KCHA preserve the region’s affordable housing.

In 2013-14 we led a collaborative effort to buy nine privately owned, Section 8-assisted complexes around Washington state. Seven of the properties serve seniors and two serve families.  Four are located in King County. The $28.7 million purchase protects 337 low-income households from being forced from their homes, while also preserving these local housing resources for the long term.

KCHA secured over $20 million in tax-exempt bond proceeds and public funding to complete the acquisition. A $1 million grant from King County supported high priority safety and structural repairs for the four King County properties. The purchase of the five non-King County properties was helped by a $4.5 million housing preservation grant from the Housing Trust Fund.

Other recent acquisitions include three properties in Shoreline:

• Meadowbrook Apartments, a 115-unit family complex
• Pepper Tree Apartments, a 30-unit family complex
• Westminster Manor, a 60 unit mid-rise apartment building for low-income seniors and persons with disabilities

Vantage Point Senior Housing
KCHA developed a 77-unit subsidized apartment complex for very low-income seniors and persons with disabilities in the Benson Hill neighborhood near Renton and Kent. The project features:

• Two four-story wood frame wings
• Four elevators
• Large and small community gathering spaces
• Outdoor activity spaces
• Both covered and surface parking

Funding came from low-income housing tax credits and other public monies. Construction started in the summer of 2014 and residents began moving in during November of 2015.

Projects in the Pipeline

Windrose Assisted Living
KCHA is exploring development options for an 80-unit assisted living facility in White Center. It would serve frail elderly residents that receive Medicaid assistance. The property sits on the perimeter of Greenbridge, a KCHA master-planned community.

Transit-Oriented Development
KCHA, working with County and local governments, is working to preserve affordable housing within mass transit corridors across the county.

In the early 2000s, KCHA developed The Village at Overlake Station in Redmond.  It was the first transit-oriented development of its kind in the country, integrating affordable housing with a child-care facility and a bus transit center.

In 2015, KCHA acquired two apartment complexes totaling 286 units near the Tukwila light rail station: The Corinthian in SeaTac and The Villages at South Station in Tukwila (shown above). KCHA has made Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) a central component of its real estate acquisition and development strategy, especially the preservation of existing affordable housing along transit corridors. These acquisitions are the first phase of plan to develop or preserve at least 800 units of affordable housing within easy reach of mass transit over the next five years.