First look at St. Lukes Episcopal Church affordable housing project

Originally Published on 01/10/2022 by Meghan Walker for MyBallard

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church will be redeveloping its property at 5710 22nd Ave NW to create two eight-story buildings with 292 total apartment units.

The project—a joint partnership with Heartland LLC, Bridge Housing, and Security Properties—will include 80 affordable housing units and over 200 market-rate apartment homes. The two buildings will be integrated but separate, along with a new worship space for St. Luke’s congregation.

The development will span over four parcels of land (see map below) with a total area of 40,000 square feet, all belonging to St. Luke’s.

The market-rate apartments will also have 20% of the homes affordable, St. Luke’s says, which is conducted through the City of Seattle Multifamily Tax Exemption program (MFTE). All MFTE units are income-restricted, which means they are for individuals and families earning 60-80% of the Area Median Income (AMI). For example, 80% AMI is an annual income of $63,350.

The affordable apartment units are for families at or below 60% AMI—for a family of four, that’s $69,420.

The ground-level space will be for the new church, which will be located at the corner of 22nd Ave NW and NW 57th St. St Luke’s says the market-rate and MFTE apartments will be located above the church. No commercial or retail spaces are currently planned for the development.

There will be 165 parking units in an underground parking garage, which will be accessed from a single driveway off 57th St.

An early design guidance meeting was held last week to review the design plans; you can review and submit comments about the project here. https://cosaccela.seattle.gov/Portal/Cap/CapDetail.aspx?Module=COSPubComments&TabName=COSPubComments&capID1=21CAP&capID2=00000&capID3=04GN5&agencyCode=SEATTLE