Belltown Messenger

Belltown Messenger Cover - January 2006 THE LOW INCOME HOUSING INSTITUTE has either built or redeveloped over 2,600 units of affordable housing across western Washington over the past 14 years. But its decade-long plans to build in its home neighborhood, Belltown, had always been thwarted by financial and bureaucratic setbacks.

But no longer. On a cold but sunny mid-December morning, LIHI and Mayor Greg Nickels held a press conference to announce its Belltown View project was finally moving forward, thanks to a $1,864,800 commitment from the Seattle Office of Housing.

The eight-story building at 2407 First Ave. (currently a parking lot between the Cyclops restaurant and LIHI's offices) is slated to begin construction sometime in 2007, pending a final tax-credit agreement. It will open in 2008 with 25 rental units, five of which will be set aside for homeless families. It will also include a new LIHI office, one floor of underground parking, and the also long-delayed Belltown Community Center. That will be a meeting room funded by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, with $1.7 million in funds from the Community Center Levy Program. (Earlier this year, when Belltown View was still mired in delays, some neighborhood leaders tried to get the community center project moved to the Olympic Sculpture Park.) During the low-key PR event, Nickels and LIHI executive director Sharon Lee gave brief remarks citing Belltown's status as having the city's costliest housing. They didn't mention, and didn't need to, that these 25 apartments would hardly counter the thousands of high-end units now being built or planned in the area. (See Front Page Fodder, this page.)

Once Belltown View is built, LIHI will be able to redevelop its current office site, in the same building as the Downunder nightclub. - Clark Humphrey