BRIDGE Starts Work on Seattle Project

Nonprofit affordable housing specialist BRIDGE Housing Corp. has broken ground on a community in Bellevue, Wash. The project will provide 234 affordable units for residents whose incomes are below 60 percent of the Area Median Income, about $69,000 for a four-person household. 

The property will offer studios, one-, two- and three-bedrooms units. Forty units will be reserved for residents with developmental disabilities.

The community will consist of two mid-rise buildings, six and seven stories tall, on property provided by Sound Transit, the region’s mass transit agency. The buildings will be within walking distance of a new light rail station on Sound Transit’s 2 Line. 

Residents will receive on-site support services provided by two social service organizations based in greater Seattle: Wellspring Family Services and Open Doors for Multicultural Families.

The new community will be part of the Spring District, a 36-acre mixed-use, transit-centered neighborhood featuring high-tech employers, shops and restaurants, parks and recreational areas, and public schools.

Funding for the project is a complex mix, as usual with affordable housing. Sources include Amazon, the Washington State Department of Commerce, King County, the City of Bellevue, and ARCH, a regional housing coalition. Citi is the construction lender, JLL the permanent lender, and the National Affordable Housing Trust is a tax credit investor.

GGLO is the project’s architect, while the general contractor is Expel Pacific. Avenue5 will provide property management services upon completion. The community is slated to deliver in about two years.

Affordable scarcity in Seattle

At the groundbreaking ceremony for the BRIDGE Housing project, retail giant Amazon announced that the company will dedicate $100 million from its Housing Equity Fund to produce further affordable housing in Bellevue.  The commitment will include a particular focus on projects supported by the city of Bellevue on its three city-owned transit-oriented sites.

In King County, Wash., only 23 housing units are available and affordable for every 100 extremely low-income households, which amounts to a shortage of over 7,000 affordable units, according to county data. Moreover, seven of 10 low-income households are cost-burdened, meaning they spend at least 30 percent of their income on housing.

The housing shortage extends further than the low-income part of the market, and beyond King County. In a 2023 report, the Washington State Department of Commerce found that the state needs to add 1.1 million homes over the next 20 years, with only about half of them affordable for residents at the lowest income levels. 

Including the community in Bellevue, San Francisco-based BRIDGE Housing currently has more than 1,000 units of affordable housing either open or under development in King County. Overall, the company’s portfolio includes more than 14,000 apartments in California, Oregon and Washington with another 10,000 another units in the development or acquisition pipelines.

Earlier this year BRIDGE Housing broke ground on an affordable project in Portland. The 224-unit community is also situated on a site nearby a light rail station. Two-thirds of the units will cater to residents earning up to 60 percent of the area median income and one-third will be restricted to individuals earning no more than 30 percent of AMI.