The Madison/Boylston Project Groundbreaking Transcript

Transcript

Brooke: We would like to acknowledge that the site for this project is on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people. The Duwamish people have stewarded the Seattle area for thousands of years and continue to do so today.

John: What housing means to me is that I have a place of my own. You know, I don’t have to share it with anyone and I know each and every night where I’m going to lay down at.

Catherine: Affordable housing in downtown Seattle is really a great opportunity. You know, everything is becoming more and more expensive downtown.

Richard: Affordable housing has changed my life by giving me a place to live. Catherine: For me, it’s given me a chance to heal from some workplace traumas and it’s helped me to strengthen my ties with some of my family members, just by having that stability of living in affordable housing.

Richard: Coming from a background that I came from, you know, of a working man, I had no idea how to survive on the streets. I would be dead had it not been for affordable housing.

Paul: For 40 years now, Plymouth Housing has been working to eliminate homelessness in our community. We bring chronically homeless individuals off the streets into permanent housing, a permanent home, and we want to keep them there long term.

Susan: Bellwether Housing is a non-profit housing organization. We develop, own, and operate affordable housing throughout King County. We have been around 40 years, this is in fact our 40th anniversary. Our mission is to create vibrant, healthy, diverse communities through affordable housing.

Paul: The partnership with Bellwether Housing is allowing both organizations to do something pretty incredible. This is going to be the first high-rise in Seattle for affordable housing in over 50 years.

Susan: And the land provides for a 17-story building. Our organizations, no non-profit organization in Seattle, has ever built a building of that scale before. Five stories on the bottom floors that Plymouth will own and operate for homeless seniors. The housing on floors five through 17 will be 250 units of a range of unit sizes: studios, one bedrooms, all the way up to three bedrooms.

Sherry: First Hill community is very vibrant. You have healthcare, you have businesses, you have restaurants. You have residents, you have old, we have young, people living and working in the First Hill community. It’s ever moving and ever percolating with the vibrancy of a city, a little urban city.

Susan: The First Hill neighborhood is so great for so many reasons. It is in the core of the city, it’s immediately adjacent to all kinds of transit opportunities. And not only that, it’s in the middle of a job center, of… The hospitals are right there, Seattle University is right there, Seattle Central College is right there. Lots of jobs in the neighborhood, lots of other great public amenities, parks. It’s just a few blocks from downtown. It’s really an amazing neighborhood and a great opportunity for working people in the city to be able to live where they work, instead of having to commute two hours a day back and forth to a place where they can find affordable housing.

Catherine: And you can contribute to your sense of your neighborhood and community by living right near where you work or not too far from where you work.

Paul: For Plymouth, we’re serving chronically homeless seniors, and the fact that we’re close to all the hospitals and healthcare is really important. In fact, many healthcare institutions supported us in this project and several others.

John: I have breathing difficulties, so imagine if I was to, say… catch pneumonia and my lungs would fill up with fluid and I couldn’t breathe. Well, with medical help that close, I could get treatment quickly.

Paul: This project is going to be built on the Sound Transit site. Nearly five years ago, we identified that site and we went to Sound Transit and we asked, “Could we possibly have this site to do affordable housing? We have a great need in our community.” And they came on board. What’s amazing about the partnership with Sound Transit is they’ve turned this property over to us at no cost.

Brooke: Affordable housing near transit is critical to the region’s growth. Being able to provide access to opportunity for people of all income levels is a huge priority for the region and is something that we have been focusing on for a long time: to include affordability near transit so that everybody has the same access to to jobs, to employers, and to healthcare.

Susan: I also want to point out the amazing support that we got from the neighborhood on First Hill. The neighbors there were more than supportive. Those neighbors came out to public hearings to speak out for the project, to provide as much density and affordability on the site as possible, in a neighborhood where there’s been just incredible development pressure.

Sherry: Urban density is an asset in the First Hill community. Having the number of units, which means the number of residents, which means the number of human beings living and working in the First Hill community could really benefit us all.

Susan: We have put a significant amount of Bellwether’s own money in this development. We raised philanthropic funds and investments from folks around this community to support this building in particular and that’s one of the things that I think brings some extra energy to this project for us.

Paul: We have a crisis in our community around affordable housing. And the fact that we’re going to get this building done, bring it on in 2022, and have 350 units for people, who, many have been homeless and many are working in our community. It’s going to be a great, great project.

John: It’s people looking out for each other and that’s what affordable housing is all about. A sense of community is what America has always been about and I hope it continues.