On Tuesday, the Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD) announced it is acquiring Youngstown Flats, a six-story apartment complex with 193 homes, located in West Seattle.
The property marks the recently funded public developer's second acquisition of an apartment complex. The SSHD's board granted a stamp of approval for the acquisition on Tuesday night. SSHD says it expects to buy Youngstown Flats for about $68 million and close on the property in mid-December.
Acquired at a cost of just over $352,000 per apartment, the Youngstown Flats is significantly cheaper than building a comparable housing complex from scratch.
With the addition of Youngstown Flats, SSHD will own a total of 343 units. In May, the developer announced its first purchase: Elara at the Market, a 150-unit complex near Pike Place Market. That 2018 building was slightly newer, but in the same general age range that the developer appears to be targeting in its early acquisitions.
Earlier this month, SSHD announced its first construction project in the Central District, aiming to add 20 homes on a 7,000-square-foot lot donated by the family of former House Speaker Frank Chopp, who passed away in 2025 after a long career as a champion for affordable housing at the state legislature. As a new construction project still in the design phase, those units will take longer to come online but are expected to open in 2028.
Youngtown Flats includes a broad range of unit sizes, which the SSHD pointed to as a selling point: "One of the central attractions of the complex were its large unit sizes. On average, each apartment is more than 800 square feet, and Youngstown Flats offers nearly 50 two-bedroom apartments." More recent apartment developments have tended to focus on one-bedroom units and to spurn multi-bedrooms, given current market realities.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for SSHD,” said the agency’s interim CEO Tiffani McCoy in a statement. “Providing permanently affordable, family-sized housing in different parts of Seattle is what we’re all about.”
Located at 4040 26th Ave SW, Youngstown Flats was developed by Barrientos Ryan and Legacy Partners. While a market-rate private development, the building participated in Seattle's Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) program, which provided discounted rents to 20% of tenants in exchange for a property tax break. Since the building just passed the 12-year mark, SSHD noted it had aged out of MFTE, which was leading to rent pressure on residents in the formerly rent-restricted discounted units as the program lapsed.
"SSHD’s new ownership will potentially protect about 30 residents from economic displacement by offering them a permanent affordability program under the social housing model," the agency noted in a press release.
Excellent transit access was another attribute that SSHD underscored, pointing to two convenient nearby RapidRide bus lines: the H Line and C Line. The complex will also be a short walk from the Delridge light rail station planned as part of Sound Transit's planned West Seattle Link Extension, which will add 3.9 miles of service from SoDo to Alaska Junction in 2035 (following a series of planning delays).
Given worries that light rail's arrival may drive up rents and displacement pressure on existing residents, social housing could provide an antidote to that dynamic, sheltering some housing stock from the whims of the market.
The complex is near the northern stub of the Longfellow Creek Legacy Trail, a hiking path through a greenbelt disrupted by West Seattle Golf Course, but continuing farther south. The Nucor steel mill is a few blocks north of the property, and a state driver's licensing office is next door.
Seattle Councilmember Rob Saka, who represents District 1 including West Seattle, celebrated the acquisition.
“I am so happy to see social housing being built in my district. Mixed-income communities, where those at lower incomes pay less in rent than those who make more, is an effective way of addressing Seattle’s housing and affordability crisis," Saka said in a statement. "And with transit-oriented development, residents can more easily reach work, school, and essential services.”
In 2024, Saka joined the centrist council majority in voting to put a competing measure on the ballot, which had the intent of blocking the excess compensation tax that will ultimately fund the Youngstown Flats acquisition and SSHD's other additions. Seattle voters ultimately rejected that council alternative and approved the grassroots "Prop 1A" measure in February 2025 – even in the face of opposition from then-Mayor Bruce Harrell and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
The high earners tax that Proposition 1A set in motion pulled in more revenue than expected, netting $115 million in its first year. That funding is what is powering the SSHD's buying spree.
Eventually, the SSHD plans to shift its focus to constructing new housing, rather than procuring existing apartment complexes. To get started, the acquisition strategy allows the SSHD to grow its portfolio quickly and establish collateral for loans to fund future construction projects.
Tenants at the Youngstown Flats may not notice a huge difference immediately, but they will have greater certainty their rents will not spike unexpectedly and the agency is planning some perks that market-rate landlords do not typically offer. Among them: free, one-year ORCA transit passes to all residents.
"We also plan to get rid of junk fees and freeze rents for existing leases for two years, through December 2028," the agency said. "Though not immediate, over the course of the first year of our ownership, SSHD will end Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS) charges at the property, saving residents on utility costs as well."
The Youngstown Flats acquisition will allow the SSHD to exceeding its housing pipeline goal for 2026, the agency said, adding it expects to unveil additional acquisitions next year. By the end of 2027, SSHD expects to own more than 1,000 units of housing, meaning it expects to add at least 650 homes to its social housing rolls next year.
Ryan Packer
