Seattle picks developer for new Lake City community center, housing

Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood is a step closer to getting a larger new community center with affordable housing on top.

The city’s parks and housing departments have picked nonprofit Mercy Housing to lead the $100 million-plus project, officials announced Friday.

Lake City in Northeast Seattle is diverse and growing but has lacked a public community center since 2023, when its old center burned and was razed.

Even before the fire, the old center was smaller and had fewer amenities than most in Seattle. Located on 28th Avenue Northeast next to Lake City’s public library, it hosted youth programs, senior lunches and community celebrations, but it didn’t have a gym or air conditioning, and few windows.

Officials began discussing a new Lake City center years ago, before the COVID pandemic. They saw an opportunity to replace the old center in the same spot not only with a new center but also with floors of housing above.

The mixed-used nature of the project complicated the planning and the pandemic caused delays. Although the Chinatown International District community center was co-developed with apartments, Seattle has never built a community center with housing on city land before.

The city asked developers for proposals last year, then chose Mercy Housing over Bridge Housing and the Low Income Housing Institute. The idea is to give Mercy a long-term lease while retaining ownership of the property. 

Mercy plans to include more than 90 rental units at rents considered affordable for households making up to 60% of the area’s median income. For example, a family of three making up to about $81,000 would pay no more than about $2,000 for a two-bedroom apartment, including basic utilities.

Details still need to be hammered out; the city and Mercy say they’ll work with a neighborhood advisory team to design the community center.

In surveys last year, many Lake City residents said they wanted the new center to include a multipurpose room and many wanted a gym.

A feasibility study estimated the project’s price tag at $105 million in 2022, and costs have increased since, according to the city, which says the funding will come from the parks and housing departments and from other sources.

After the old community center burned, officials said they hoped to break ground on a new structure in 2025. Now the partners anticipate breaking ground in 2027, a spokesperson for the housing department said Friday.

Mercy is a national nonprofit organization that owns and operates more than 50 properties in the Pacific Northwest, including at Magnuson Park in Seattle.