Mt. Baker Neighborhood
Nearly 50% of Homes at ‘The Maddux’ Will be ‘Family Size’ 2-3 Bedroom Units; All Apartments Will Be Affordable to Individuals / Families Earning 60% Area Median Income and Below
Seattle, June 25, 2018 – Local non-profit and affordable housing developer Mt. Baker Housing (www.mtbakerhousing.org) (MBH) today announced new details surrounding its latest affordable housing development in Seattle’s Mt. Baker neighborhood.
MBH will construct a two-building, multifamily affordable housing project at a key site in Mt. Baker Town Center, located on S. McClellan Street on the east side of Martin Luther King Jr Way S. This pivotal transit-oriented development site will help create a “gateway” between the Mt. Baker Town Center and the Mt. Baker residential neighborhood.
A first-of-its-kind partnership between MBH and the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), MBH will use state funds to clean-up onsite contamination left by a gas station and dry cleaner. MBH entered into a legal agreement with Ecology last year called a Prospective Purchaser Consent Decree (PPCD) that describes the clean-up actions MBH must complete. Ecology last year provided $400,000 to MBH to start the cleanup process. The Legislature authorized another $6.2M to complete the cleanup work for the project. Ecology will provide funding to MBH starting this summer.
“We’ve been in the Mt. Baker neighborhood a long time and these five properties always intrigued us
—but we knew conventional options to develop the site were limited,” said Conor Hansen Director of Real Estate at Mt. Baker Housing Association. “Once we learned about the opportunity to work with the Department of Ecology and play a part in creating a new innovative model, we believed this site would be the perfect candidate to clean-up, develop and activate a prominent intersection that
will serve as a catalyst for the neighborhood and provide much-needed affordable housing near light rail.”
As a pilot project with Ecology, The Maddux will demonstrate that this type of collaboration with an affordable housing developer can achieve multiple goals, including: urban environmental clean-up, community redevelopment and transit oriented affordable housing.
“This project will allow us to use our clean-up resources to take contaminated neighborhood properties and make them suitable for affordable housing,” said Jim Pendowski, who manages Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program. “Clean-ups have always supported economic redevelopment and livable communities. Now we will be able to broaden the benefits of clean-up. This funding will enable MBH to help revitalize the neighborhood and address a critical public priority.”
In early 2017, the City of Seattle designated MBH’s five properties in Mt. Baker as a Redevelopment Opportunity Zone (ROZ), which allows Ecology funds to flow directly to MBHA for remediation expenses. MBH aims to break ground on the project in 2019.
New Project to Build Hundreds of New Family-Sized Homes Within Blocks of Light Rail Located within blocks of the Mt. Baker light rail transit station, all 144 new homes at The Maddux will be affordable to those earning 60% of area median income (AMI) or less and includes studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartment homes. Nearly 50% of the homes will be two- or three- bedroom ‘family-sized’ affordable housing.
With a focus on preserving the affordability of future housing and community facilities along transit corridors, The Maddux will also be a good demonstration of many of the principles within Mt. Baker Housing’s equitable development strategy. The project also plans to utilize new zoning stemming from the city’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) rezones and will include onsite MHA units.
The current project team includes: Aspect Consulting (Environmental), Perkins Coie (Environmental), Impact Capital (Acquisition Lender), Mithun (architect) and Beacon Development Group (Development Consultant). A general contractor will be selected shortly.
The Maddux is MBH’s seventh affordable apartment project in Seattle. Additional projects include the 156-unit Mt. Baker Village (Mt. Baker), a new 160 unit building in Rainier Beach, 90-unit scattered sites (Rainier Valley), 35-unit Arbor Woods (Skyway), 30-unit Starliter Apartments (Rainier Beach) and 26-unit Crestwood Place (Rainier Valley).