Well, it seems that even if you’re the seventh-richest man on Earth your money can’t buy you a well-officiated Super Bowl. But can it make a dent in downtown Seattle’s affordability for the working class? Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. intends to at least try.
Vulcan Inc. unveiled plans Monday to build affordable housing in South Lake Union that’s aimed at allowing teachers, laboratory technicians and health care workers to live closer to their jobs in the burgeoning area.
Later this year, the Paul Allen-owned company will break ground on a 53-unit apartment complex for such lower-income workers — not the poor, but those making 80 percent of King County’s median annual income, or roughly $43,000 for one person.
Once it’s completed in 2008, the 33,000-square-foot building will become another pocket of relatively affordable housing in a city that has struggled at times to maintain its working-class housing stock as real estate values have soared.
Of course, if there is a bubble in Seattle, by 2008 it may well have popped. But they still get a gold star for at least trying to make a difference.
(Paul Nyhan, Seattle P-I, 02.02.2006)