In the Central District, groundbreaking set for one side of 23rd Ave with new project planned for the other — Plus, an unofficial tally of Capitol Hill’s big mixed-use buildings waiting for improved ‘market conditions’

Plans for The Bascomb on the west side of the street

Groundbreaking for The Sarah Queen on the east side of 23rd Ave will come this summer

Central District developer Jaebadiah Gardner is well in front of plans for a “taller and denser” — and more equitable and affordable — Seattle.

Gardner Global has announced The Sarah Queen, a new Black-owned development set to rise at 23rd and Union, will break ground in June.

Across the street, plans for The Bascomb are also now taking shape.

On the west side of 23rd Ave, things are still in the paperwork phase.

According to permits filed this month with the city, The Bascomb is planned to rise seven stories on the west side of 23rd Ave, creating 54 units and a small, five-car parking garage. The planned unit mix will include two and three-bedroom units. Every unit is being planned as affordable housing.

Across 23rd Ave, they are getting ready to dig in for a year and a half of construction on The Sarah Queen.

CHS reported last August as the Mount Calvary Christian Center on the east side of 23rd Ave was demolished to make way for The Sarah Queen. That development will create 112 new apartment homes above street level commercial or live-work space and underground parking for about 20 vehicles.

The Bascomb will rise eight stories thanks in part to the Mandatory Housing Affordability program A portion of The Sarah Queen’s units will be reserved as affordable housing for residents earning 80% or below of the Area Median Income.

The developers says “affordability-by-design” principles will help keep rents lower and will target renters making up to 120% AMI as it transforms the former church property between the Uncle Ike’s pot shop and the cannabis entrepreneur’s car wash on the other end of the block.

Together with its land across the street where The Bascomb will someday rise, the Mount Calvary property acquisitions totaled around $6.9 million according to county records. In 2021, Gardner finalized a $3.75 million deal with Seattle-based real estate investment firm Heartland to bring them on to help develop The Sarah Queen. In 2022, Gardner Global announced it had received a $4.5 million grant from Amazon to boost the project.

On the west side, The Bascomb is taking shape under guidance of Gardner Global and Blue Ridge Cascade, a national developer specializing in workforce housing. Design work is being led by Encore Architects.

The church properties on the west side of 23rd Ave currently display colorful murals

Both buildings will honor historical ties in the neighborhood that are personal to Gardner. The Sarah Queen honors his grandmother, business owner and community leader Sarah Queen Gardner. The Bascomb honors the Bascomb family including Paul Bascomb a real estate pioneer and community leader in the Central District, and his daughter Nicole Bascomb-Green who led the sale of the church property. She talked with CHS in 2019 about how the sale would allow the church to someday move to a more affordable area closer to its congregation’s homes. For now, Mt. Calvary calls the Seventh-day Adventist Church on 25th Ave its temporary home.

The new wave of development will join a decade of changes around 23rd and Union. Much of the growth at 23rd and Union has been driven by a mix of market-rate projects and affordable housing from Community Roots and Africatown. Developments from Lake Union Partners began the rapid transformation 23rd and Union where the developer created three projects including Midtown Square adding a combined 675 apartment units and more than 40,000 square feet of commercial and restaurant space. Meanwhile, the opening of Community Roots Housing’s Liberty Bank Building at 24th and Union that opened in 2019 created 115 100%-affordable apartment units and street level commercial and restaurant space.

The Africatown Plaza mixed-use building on the southern end of the Midtown Square block opened in 2025 as a 100% affordable, publicly funded project from Africatown Community Land Trust and Community Roots.

Gardner has held up his efforts with the old church properties as examples a for-profit response can be part of balancing the city’s need for new housing with equitable growth.

What will Seattle build next?
The 23rd Ave developments are taking shape on busy and bustling 23rd Ave as Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced her plans to speed up the effort to increase density and affordability across the city with efforts hoped to extend areas for multifamily housing more deeply into neighborhoods around busy main arterials so that more people can live in quieter residential areas that are still within a short walk of transit.

They also come in what is mostly a quiet time for larger developments in the central city after two decades of explosive growth has been slowed by chilling “market conditions” and interest rate fears.

One survivor is set to open soon in the area. CHS reported here on the final phases of construction on the 82-unit Arbory mixed-use development and new PCC grocery that was delayed for years by a land-use battle with neighbors.

Across Capitol Hill, CHS found only one massive construction crane at work in early 2025. The seven-story, 138-unit mixed-use Tanager Apartments development is being built to jigsaw into the block between Chop Suey and queer bars Madison Pub and Diesel at 14th and Madison. The businesses remain open through the change.

Underway at Broadway and Pine

The big cranes also got busy later last year as construction began on the Broadway Center for Youth and the Constellation Center job training facility and a neighboring eight story building with 84 affordable apartment units at Broadway and Pine.

Elsewhere around the Hill, paperwork awaits.

On the other end of Broadway, a plan is ready and waiting for this “u-shape” project that will someday create around 120 new homes on Broadway’s Bait Shop block.

There is a large handful more of big projects sitting in wait including the development planned for where the The Olive Way Improvement Company building used to stand.

Meanwhile, up on 15th Ave E, two grocery-related developments sit in various states of Seattle development limbo.

Safeway has been working to transform its property at 15th and John with developer Greystar. The Weber Thompson-design would create two new five-story buildings including the new grocery, around 330 market rate apartment units, some new, smaller retail spaces, and an underground parking lot for more than 300 cars. While the paperwork is robust, the project seems to be nearly fully stalled.

15th Ave’s old QFC block is also waiting but there is more of a pulse here. Just under a year ago, the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections issued its Director’s Decision approving plans for a six-story development to rise on the block. A representative for Hunters Capital talked with CHS last year about the waiting game Seattle developers were stuck in.

“Most experts are looking at pretty flat [interest] rates over the next twelve months which does not bode well for a flurry of activity,” he said. “It’ll be a year or two of “sitting on our hands.”

In the meantime, developments with affordability at their core like The Sarah Queen and The Bascomb are moving forward.

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