A neighborhood in northeast Seattle long valued for its affordability and immigrant communities is getting a major investment: 112 units of affordable housing paired with a full community center in a single eight-story building on 28th Avenue NE.
The project, owned by nonprofit developer Mercy Housing Northwest and being built by Walsh Construction, breaks ground in December 2026 and is expected to finish in early 2029. The community center portion will include a gymnasium, a community hall, a commercial kitchen, activity spaces, and childcare, putting services that low-income families often struggle to access in the same building where they live.
That combination is deliberate. City and federal housing planners have increasingly pushed for this kind of integrated model amid research showing that stand-alone affordable housing without on-site services tends to produce worse outcomes for residents. The Lake City project reflects that shift in practice.
The building sits in a neighborhood that has historically been one of Seattle's most diverse and affordable urban villages, home to large East African, Southeast Asian, and Latino communities. That character is under pressure. The 2024 opening of Lynnwood Link light rail brought high-frequency transit to nearby stations, and with it, rising property values and displacement risk for long-term residents.
Funding for projects like this flows from Seattle's Housing Levy, a voter-approved property tax that the city dramatically expanded in November 2023, growing it from $290 million to $970 million over seven years. That more-than-threefold increase reflected how severely the housing crisis had worsened: median rent in Seattle has exceeded $2,100, median home prices top $850,000, and King County's most recent count found more than 16,000 people experiencing homelessness. The city declared a homelessness state of emergency in 2015 and has never lifted it.
Mercy Housing Northwest, a Catholic-affiliated nonprofit, has built more than 2,900 affordable homes in Washington state and is one of the primary developers the city's Office of Housing relies on to execute levy-funded projects.
The project also carries workforce requirements that trace back to a 2015 Seattle ordinance, one of the first Priority Hire programs at the municipal level in the country. Workers of color, women, and residents of economically distressed ZIP codes get hiring preference under the rules, which apply to all subcontractors on the job. A University of Washington study found the program substantially increased participation by workers of color on covered projects.
Walsh Construction is seeking subcontractors for the remaining bid scopes, with fire sprinkler, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical work already awarded. Once subcontractors are lined up, the project moves toward its December start.
