Brad Padden

Brad is the CEO and founder of Housing Diversity Corporation and a co-founder of O.Z. Navigator and Anew Apartments, as well as a sponsor of numerous other projects currently under construction.

Brad has assembled a portfolio of 729 beautifully designed apartments in core Seattle neighborhoods with his partners through adaptive reuse, repositioning, and ground-up construction and has an additional 2,151 apartments under construction or in permitting across various projects in Seattle and Los Angeles, including 12 Qualified Opportunity Funds.

He prioritizes creating projects with naturally occurring affordability that also contribute to sustainability. Executive Director Nella McOsker of the Central City Association (CCA) described Brad’s project, Vida DTLA, as a project that “helps realize a more inclusive, equitable downtown and city by providing naturally affordable housing without any public dollars.”

Brad shows his commitment to efficient housing and healthy communities through multiple endeavors. These include preservation, seismic upgrading, and adaptive reuse of existing buildings in urban centers as a co-founder of Alliance for Safety, Affordability and Preservation (ASAP!), an advocacy group that created a plan and a funding path to bring 1,145 seismically vulnerable unreinforced masonry buildings in Seattle up to modern safety standards. He is also a co-founder of the Chinatown-International District (C-ID) Coalition for Safety and Security, which works to organize and amplify C-ID voices and promote equitable development and economic growth in that vibrant and diverse community. Brad regularly collaborates with other philanthropists, investors, and leaders in the real estate industry, including as a member of ULI’s Affordable/Workforce Housing Council (AWHC), where he helps share his expertise and guidance on all aspects of non-tax-credit affordable housing.