By Jon Peterson
Seattle-based Vulcan Real Estate is planning the first of three new apartment developments in the Yesler Terrace region of Seattle that will eventually total 650 units.
“This region has been known as an area where many low-income housing projects have been built dating back to the 1940s. This is an area now that is changing and will be able to support the development of new market rate apartment properties. One part of this is that there is now public transaction in the area with the addition of a new rail line extension,” says Lori Mason Curran, director of real estate for Vulcan.
The development cost on the three planned projects will be around $200 million. Vulcan has acquired the land for the first of the three projects. It paid $5.92 million for the one-acre site that is located at the northwest corner of Broadway and Yesler at 123 Broadway. The seller of the land was the Seattle Housing Authority. This location is presently just land, and there is no existing facility on the site.
The first of the three projects will total 195 units. Construction on this project is planned to commence this summer, and the developer plans around 18 months to complete the project. The unit breakdown will be 20 percent affordable apartments for the next 20 years, while the rest will be market rate units. The second project will likely commence one year after the first one is built, and a similar schedule is planned for the third property.
Vulcan estimates that the first project will attract both hospital workers that are employed nearby as well as students that attend Seattle University. “It would seem logical that people that work at the hospital campuses would like our location as they could take public transportation to work. Our site is only two blocks from Seattle University, so students would be able to walk to school,” said Mason Curran.
She does see that the overall apartment market in Seattle remains very tight. “The current vacancy for the entire Seattle market is five percent, which I think shows off the strength of the market at this time,” said Mason Curran.
Vulcan has a history of developing apartments in the Seattle market, and with this development the company will have constructed a total of around 1,500 units in the marketplace.
The Yesler Terrace region of Seattle has a long-term plan for a mixed-use development on over 30 acres of land. This includes the development of 5,000 housing units, 900,000 square feet of office space, 153,000 square feet of retail in addition to some community space. All of these developments could be constructed over the next 20 years.
