Ballard Project Review Tests Seattle’s Tax Incentive

FA Johnson Development has moved forward with plans to replace seven single-family homes in northwestern Seattle with a 171-unit apartment building in a region of record-low construction.

The locally based developer led by Fawn Johnson will go before a design review for the six-story complex at 904 Market Street, in Ballard, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported.

The project, known as Kanape, would replace homes where Johnson housed hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan.

Plans call for a building with 171 apartments on three quarters of an acre, with a 3,000-square-foot corner store or restaurant at Ninth Avenue Northwest and Market Street.

The charcoal and brown complex, designed by Public47 Architects, would include large blocks of windows, fronted by mature oaks, according to a rendering. It would have a rooftop deck and community room, a work-from-home lounge, and a gym, pet washing and bike repair area.

In exchange for getting a sixth floor, Johnson agreed to save a 75-foot-tall Douglas fir, which will stand in a courtyard at the entrance.

“We’ve really made it a centerpiece of the lobby with the courtyard seating around it,” Johnson told the Business Journal.

The budget for the building depends on the cost of financing and regulations, including uncertainty over the city’s multifamily tax-exemption, offered in exchange for affordable or rent-controlled homes.

The tax exemption program ended Dec. 31, so the City Council extended it to Sept. 10 to buy time as it maps out revisions. It’s been contentious, with developers anxious about affordability requirements that could make projects financially infeasible, according to the Business Journal.

Pointing to the record low number of units under construction, she wants to start soon so there will be less competition for tenants when the building opens 20 months after the start of construction. Pending approvals and financing, the project could break ground in late summer.

“There’s just not going to be much else [by way of] inventory,” Johnson told the Business Journal. Equity and financing “is the tough part right now.”

She paid $9.3 million for the seven homes, where she provided a roof over the head of refugees until they could land apartments.

“Because of all the uncertainty in the market over the last four or five years, and certainly right now, instead of renting the houses we actually started an organization when Kabul [Afghanistan] fell in 2021, we were offering housing for refugees. I’ve had about 800 refugees come through,” Johnson said.

FA Johnson Development, founded in 2019, is owned by Johnson and her son, Ben Pryde. The firm’s projects include apartments and condominiums across Seattle, including adaptive re-use of century-old buildings, according to its website.

— Dana Bartholomew