A new 20-unit apartment building in the Central District is set to make history as the first new development constructed by Seattle's three-year-old Social Housing Developer (SSHD). With a unanimous vote of the SSHD board to acquire a 7,800 square foot property on E Yesler Way Thursday night, the vision of growing Seattle's housing stock with a new type of permanently affordable homes takes a another major step forward.
The parcel set to be transformed into social housing, at 2402 E Yesler Way, comes with an extra layer of meaning for Seattle housing advocates. It currently belongs to the family of former House Speaker Frank Chopp, who passed away in 2025 after a long career advocating around housing issues in the state legislature. Chopp's widow, Nancy Long, currently controls the property.
Construction is planned to start in 2027, with the building opening to tenants in 2028.
"It's very emotional because Frank was the first lawmaker that came out and supported social housing when House Our Neighbors ran the first initiative and [he] talked to multiple people on our behalf," SSHD Interim CEO Tiffani McCoy told The Urbanist following the vote. "So this is an incredible moment. I know that he would be proud, and it was really amazing that Nancy brought the property to us because she wanted it to be either affordable or social housing."
This new project will be the SSHD's second housing project overall, ahead of what is expected to be an accelerated pace of property acquisition. Earlier this year, the developer took over operations of the 15o-unit Elara at the Market along Western Avenue after purchasing that 2018 building for $60.9 million. More than 10,000 people applied for a chance to live in the first phase of units that were opened up to new applications this past spring.
Dedicated funding for the SSHD comes from a 5% payroll tax on annual compensation over $1 million, approved by Seattle voters in February 2025 with the passage of Proposition 1A. Annual revenues that were projected at approximately $50 million have proven extremely conservative, with $115 million coming in during the first year of collections. Those additional resources are set to allow the developer to scale up faster than previously anticipated.
McCoy, who previously served as the Co-Executive Director with House Our Neighbors, took over as Interim CEO in January after Robert Jimenez, the first pick to lead the SSHD, was fired by the board. A key hire after Jimenez's departure was Ginger Segel, brought on as chief real estate development officer.
Central District House, as the developer is calling the E Yesler Way project, will be built to passive house standards, McCoy said. Architect and Baugruppen evangelist Michael Eliason, a past contributor to The Urbanist, remains the developer's director of design & policy.
Though details around planned design are scant right now, we do know that there are plans to approach the site a little differently than a normal market rate developer would. Thanks to a state law passed earlier this year – House Bill 1687 – social housing developers have expanded authority to request variances from existing zoning standards, authority that had previously only applied to public housing authorities.
"We are looking to utilize our new power under the Housing Cooperation Law to try to to try to move a setback so that we can be better neighbors and not have windows going directly next to the next door neighbor," McCoy said.
McCoy brought up the fact that the social housing developer's first project will be built in a neighborhood that has seen significant upheaval in its population over the past few decades.
"We also recognize the deep tension – it's in the Central District, it has a very racist past in there, and there's still massive displacement that is happening," McCoy said. "So we are excited about using a community preference plan, a really robust affirmative marketing plan, learning from folks that have done that so successfully there."
Central District House is just the start of planned property acquisitions by the Social Housing Developer, with plans advancing for work on both new build projects and acquisitions. A project pipeline that received a board vote Thursday, contingent on the issuance of bonds that will allow the payroll tax funding currently coming in to be leveraged much further, would see six new construction projects and four acquisitions move forward through the end of 2027.
"There's so much more we're doing that isn't public yet because we have to wait for our board of directors to let us talk about them," McCoy said. "I see a lot of momentum. There will be another announcement [of] between 50 and 250 units that is going to be coming in the end of the year, beginning of next year, and much more to come."
Ryan Packer
Ryan Packer
