New development hopes to bring pedestrian feel to Mt. Baker
SEATTLE - A new project offering affordable housing and work space for local artists and their families will break ground near the Mt. Baker Link light rail station in Rainier Valley next week, according to the developer, Artspace.
Sound Transit sold the vacant lot, near the intersection of Rainier Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, to Artspace following a public request for proposals three years ago.
Artspace, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit developer, now plans to move forward with the Mt. Baker Station Lofts, a 57-unit affordable live/work complex with commercial space on the ground level.
"This is a project that will jump start an urban village around a transit site," says Cathryn Vandenbrink, vice president of properties for Artspace. "Right now this area is car oriented and we are charged with bringing a pedestrian feel here. We are very excited about the transformation planned in this neighbor."
The Mt. Baker Station Lofts is Artspace's third project in Seattle. The developer created the Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts in Pioneer Square in 2004 and the Hiawatha Lofts in the Central District four years later.
Between all three projects, Vandenbrink says they have a waiting list of nearly 1,000 people wanting to move into their properties.
The Rainier Valley development will be Artspace's first transit-oriented project. Floor plans for the Mt. Baker Station Lofts include a community room and 12 commercial spaces for nonprofits and creative businesses on the ground level.
Vandenbrink says when they open in late Spring 2014 all of their residential and commercial spaces will be fully leased.
Who is paying for this? Minneapolis-based nonprofit developer says it all. No profit. No one does anything for free. So I ask again, who is paying for this?
@Nightshiftbeing the owner of a nonprofit is the best! Â i get 1 million in funding from you guys - spend 100k on my personal assistant (nice girl met her at the grab and go coffee stand - breast, i mean best assistant ive had since the last one) and pay myself a salary of 900k pa. Â see none of that nasty profit here and people who dont know better think im a charity!
@Nightshift Hey! Just because you can't afford a new condo doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have one. If I choose to have the taxpayers assist me through a four-year college to get an Interpretive Dance BA, is it my fault I can't earn an affordable wage when I'm done? All those other kids had a blast with their four years, learning electrical engineering, quantity surveying, let's see...MATH! And now they get all the well paying jobs on top of it all. Well, I'm here to tell you, my thesis "The Life of a Butterfly, as Perceived by a One Legged Dog, Communicated through The Timelees Art of the Tango," was no walk in the park. I am now due my dues, and I want my apartment.
@Nightshift You, I and all the rest of the taxpaying dummies.
I love how the term "low income housing" has evolved into "affordable housing and work space for local artists."
@Illuminati Just wait, within five years it will be filled with the destitute, druggies (both buyers and sellers) and probably prostitution.