By Natalie Bicknell Argerious
The Housing Diversity Corporation (HDC), which describes itself as “a housing innovator dedicated to providing a forward-thinking alternative to traditional apartment living in urban centers,” recently announced that it received a $25.76 million dollar loan that will enable them to proceed ahead with plans to build a 114 home apartment development in West Seattle near the West Seattle Bridge.
Located at 3405 Harbor Avenue, the development is proposed to include 91 attainably priced market-rate units and 23 home made affordable through the City’s Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program. 65 parking stalls have been proposed as part of the development.
The lot on which the development will be constructed is sloped, requiring a variety of technical considerations in regards to the design of the building and it landscaping. Currently the land is undeveloped.
This project is the latest in a series of developments that have been undertaken or are currently in the works by HDC across Seattle. A review of the completed developments in HDC’s current shows a tendency to build micro-flats, compact studios, and one-bedroom apartments, in dense urban areas. For example, an apartment building on 12th Street in Capitol Hill built by HDC rents out 250 square foot apartments for approximately $1,100 per month. According to RentCafé, the average studio cost in Capitol Hill is over $1,500 per month, making HDC’s building a deal for the neighborhood. It should also be noted that current design review documents filed with the City do not describe the size of the proposed West Seattle homes, but HDC does seem to expanding out from the micro flat model as it takes on more projects. That model could get a boost; Mayor Bruce Harrell has floated the idea of relaxing restrictions to encourage more micro-housing.
HDC has an impressive array of developments with similar affordability aims in the works across Seattle, including 398 home development at 900 and 912 Rainier Avenue S, 242 homes at 701 S Jackson Street, and 271 homes 7324 Martin Luther King Jr Way S, among other projects. As in West Seattle, all of their projects in the pipeline are aimed to create housing affordable for people at moderate and low-incomes. HDC also has completed buildings in Los Angeles and plan to expand across the West Coast.