By Jack Stubbs
On September 10th, in a transaction that was recently recorded, the Hiawatha Apartments—located just north of Seattle’s up-and-coming Beacon Hill neighborhood and due west of Leschi—sold for $30 million, or approximately $300,000 per unit, King County records show. The buyer was 999 Hiawatha Apartments LLC based in Seattle and the seller was Seattle-based 999 Hiawatha LLC, an entity affiliated with Paul Krug.
The Hiawatha Apartments, located at 999 Hiawatha Place S., was built in 2014 and comprises 100 units across four stories, according to the listing on apartments.com. The property offers a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom units that range from 474 to 846 square feet, and also includes on-site property management.
Located just west of Judkins Park Playing Field, the property is roughly two miles southeast of Pioneer Square and Seattle’s Central Business District via Interstate-5.
999 Hiawatha is also just north of Beacon Hill, where a number of residential/mixed-use developments have been progressing through the city’s Design Review process over the last few months. As one recent example, in April 2019, locally-based developer Pacific Housing Northwest and Bumgardner Architects received approval to move forward with its plans for the first half of it’s proposed development located at 2709 17th Ave. S.
Called Colina East, the 99-unit project will be complemented by Colina West, as well as the The Denning Apartments, also built by Pacific. Together, the developer hopes the three companion projects will form what it has described in planning documents as a “synergistic whole.” The six-story, mixed-use building will have one level of underground parking with 40 vehicle stalls and approximately 1,410 square feet of ground level commercial space. The development’s Colina West counterpart, located at 2710 Beacon Ave. S., will have 40 residential units and approximately 3,744 square feet of ground floor commercial space.
Surrounding neighborhoods, such as Othello and Mt. Baker, have in recent years been spearheading several affordable housing developments in an attempt to combat the housing crisis facing the greater city of Seattle. In June 2019, Seattle area non-profit affordable housing developer Mt. Baker Housing (MBH) announced that its Mt. Baker Village Apartments preservation project located at 2900 McClellan St. had been recognized by Affordable Housing Finance Magazine as a finalist for the 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards.
MBH transformed the existing four-story, seven building Mt. Baker Village Apartments into a modern, transit-oriented development two blocks from Seattle’s Mt. Baker Light Rail Station with 156 one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartment homes affordable at 30 to 60 percent area median income.
