Mount Baker Redevelopment Sites
What's Happening Now
The Office of Housing (OH) plans to conduct a two-part process to select a development team for the Mount Baker Redevelopment Sites, located at 2901 27th Ave S, 2700 S Winthrop St, and 26th Ave S and S Forest St in Mount Baker, adjacent to the Link light rail station. For Part 1, a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) advanced a selection of developers. Part 2 is a Request for Proposal (RFP) process that will be conducted in fall 2023 with the developers that advance from the RFQ. A development team will be designated from this group in early 2024.
The Office of Housing thanks all those who submitted responses to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for the Mt. Baker Redevelopment Project.
We are moving the following developers to the second round to submit a Request for Proposals (RFP) as primary developers.
- Bridge Housing / SouthEast Effective Development SEED
- El Centro de la Raza / Mercy Housing
- SouthEast Effective Development SEED / SRI Shelter Resources, Inc.
We invite the following organizations to move forward as secondary developers in partnership with any of the approved primary developers on the project.
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Get Involved
Engagement for this portion of the project has ended. Please read our full engagement summary here. Thank you to all those who participated in the in-language focus groups. We held focus groups and one-on-one conversations in Amharic, Khmer, Mandarin, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese.
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Background
After many years of community planning, the Mount Baker station area is entering an exciting new phase!
In June 2020, the University of Washington transferred three parcels next to the Link light rail station, including the former UW Laundry site, to the City of Seattle to redevelop for affordable housing, childcare and an early learning research facility.
The City of Seattle and Sound Transit are working in partnership with community stakeholders and a consultant team to develop preferred site features for the City's Mount Baker sites and the Sound Transit East Portal site. The Mount Baker sites will provide affordable housing, childcare and an early learning research facility. Sound Transit seeks to redevelop its adjacent East Portal site for affordable housing. Both sites have opportunity for potential open space.
This transformational redevelopment opportunity fulfills a longstanding goal to create a more pedestrian-friendly and vibrant area around the light rail station. The Mount Baker station area is a community of residents, small businesses, and neighborhood institutions that reflects the diversity of the Rainier Valley. Decades of planning have envisioned a station area as a vibrant neighborhood destination that is welcoming and safe for all. Planning efforts include the North Rainier Neighborhood Plan and Accessible Mount Baker.
About Sound Transit: Sound Transit partners with private and non-profit developers to build transit-oriented development throughout the region.
Sound Transit offers surplus properties-those acquired for building and operating the transit system-as development opportunities for affordable housing or other public benefits. Sound Transit purchased the East Portal site for construction staging during light rail construction and has used the site for storage since the Mount Baker station opened.
Documents
Timeline
Redevelopment of the City of Seattle Mount Baker sites and Sound Transit's East Portal site will be a multi-year, multi-phase process.
The first phase of the process was community engagement and a site planning/urban design study in 2020 and 2021. There will be ongoing opportunities for community engagement throughout the redevelopment of the sites.
The Office of Housing plans to release a redevelopment Request for Qualifications for a primary developer for the sites in June 2023. A group of developers will be selected, and OH will conduct a Request for Proposals process with this group in fall 2023. OH anticipates designating a primary developer by the end of the year.
