Homeless Shelter, Affordable Housing Break Ground in Burien

An Amazon-backed housing complex designed to serve the southern Greater Seattle region has begun construction.

On Friday, developers broke ground on a four-story building in Burien that will be the future home of a Mary’s Place family shelter, complete with 90 permanently affordable housing units, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported.

The facility is reported to cost $85.6 million, with the 65-room shelter serving 200 family members every night. Of the 90 apartments in the building, 30 will be set aside for no- or very-low-income families transitioning from shelter to permanent housing. The 90 apartments have two, three and four bedrooms and are reserved for households making 60 percent of the area median income. In Burien, area median income for a family of four is $157,100, according to the Business Journal.

Amazon is one of the backers of the Burien facility. In 2020, Mary’s Place opened a shelter in an Amazon office building in Seattle that’s funded in perpetuity by the Jeff Bezos-led giant. That 65-room facility provides shelter for more than 200 homeless women, children and families.

The $39 million shelter, designed by Graphite Design with GLY Construction serving as contractor, will offer residents family-centered education, health and wellness and other services, after-school programming, large dining spaces, and even a small soccer field and a half-court basketball court.

Local sports teams are also pitching in for the project. Seattle’s professional soccer teams Sounders FC and Reign FC are helping create the soccer field via their Rave Foundation charitable arm; the Looking Out Foundation, started by King County native Brandi Carlile, is also joining the effort. The Seattle Storm is partnering with Symetra on the basketball court.

The Mercy Housing apartments are estimated to cost $46.6 million, according to the Business Journal. Walsh Construction is building the residential portion of the property, with designs handled by SMR Architects.

“This project represents a significant step forward in our collective efforts to ensure every family has a safe place to call home,” David Zapolsky, chief global affairs officer at Amazon, said of the project, per the Business Journal.

The combination shelter and apartment facility will replace a 150-bed shelter in a former hospital building that Mary’s Place purchased in 2018. Once completed, it will open in mid-2027 as the second-largest Mary’s Place shelter.

— Chris Malone Méndez