The Maddux is a 200+ unit affordable housing project in Seattle that has been years in the making. After almost five years of work -- the environmental cleanup is essentially complete.
This project, in South Seattle’s Mt. Baker neighborhood, sat unused for decades. The culprit? Petroleum releases from an old gas station and solvent leaks from a former dry cleaner that severely affected soil and groundwater beneath the Site. The contamination issues prevented nearly all potential developers from touching these properties – the cleanup cost and environmental liability, which stretched across many properties, were just too much to manage.
Taking on One of the Most Challenging Sites in the City
Yet, Aspect’ s clients, Mt. Baker Housing Association, along with Perkins Coie, Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), and the City of Seattle saw an opportunity to build a new concept to turn brownfields into cleaned-up affordable housing.
Construction Begun with Move-in Anticipated in 2022
The earthworks, building design and construction team includes: Aspect, Beacon Development Group, Mithun, Coughlin Porter Lundeen and many others.
Some reasons why this project has happened:
Affordable Housing need in Seattle is great and this project commits to 200+ units near a walkable light rail station and within a mile of downtown Seattle.
Ecology provided “seed money” in support of an innovative idea – why not turn these blighted properties that no one would touch into affordable housing? A win for the environment, a win for the neighborhood, a win for housing, a win for transit and connection to downtown.
Ecology took the MBHA/Aspect/Perkins Coie innovative idea and created a new ‘Brownfield’ funding program (the Healthy Housing Program) because of this project to help affordable housing agencies develop prime real estate that has been overlooked.
But this isn’t all. The properties could liquefy in an earthquake. So, Aspect and the City of Seattle worked to design and permit a first-of-its-kind ‘earthquake proofing’ foundation system to facilitate economical, and safe, redevelopment of the property.
Construction Begun with Move-in Anticipated for 2022
The foundation engineering is ongoing as of Spring 2021.
The public will soon see the building “coming out of the ground” with anticipated move-in date in 2022 for families in the area.
Check out this ‘Story Map’ of the past 5 years of work to date:
