‘Who is going to be the builder?’: Gee wants Central District builders at the table for Seattle’s first social housing project

Seattle’s social housing developer announced its first ground-up apartment building on land in the Central District once owned by former House Speaker Frank Chopp. KIRO host Gee Scott said the question he cares about most isn’t who lives there. It’s who builds it.

“Show me who the builder and the contractor are going to be for this property, and then I will really pay attention,” Gee explained on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

The Seattle Social Housing Developer’s board voted unanimously to buy a 7,800-square-foot lot at 2402 E. Yesler Way, according to The Urbanist. The agency plans about 20 homes there at an estimated cost of $15 million, according to KING 5. That works out to about $750,000 per apartment. Construction is expected to finish by 2028.

Chopp’s widow, Nancy Long, agreed to sell the property to carry on his affordable housing work. More than half the units will have two or three bedrooms. The building will be mixed-income, with higher-paying tenants helping support lower rents for their neighbors. People who live in the Central District now, or have historical ties to it, will get priority through the city’s community preference guidelines, according to CHS Capitol Hill Seattle.

‘This is in the heart of the Central District’

Gee said the location changes the conversation. The Central District is the cultural center of Seattle’s Black community, a neighborhood shaped by gentrification and displacement.

“There have been generations of Black businesses, generations of Black people that have been living there,” Gee said. “You move everybody out, you take over this neighborhood, and then now you want to have this social housing.”

The agency’s interim CEO Tiffani McCoy acknowledged “the deep tension” at the announcement.

“It has a very racist past in there, and there’s still massive displacement that is happening,” McCoy told The Urbanist.

Gee explained why priority for tenants is not going to win him over.

“I want the folks that are at the table that are going to have real decisions,” he said.

Who is going to be the general contractor?

Gee added that he would be watching the decisions, including the builder, general contractor, and who handles the design work.

“Who is going to be the builder? I’m going to be watching that,” he said.

He pointed out that there are builders and contractors working in the Central District right now.

“Will you be calling them, or is this another opportunity from those that didn’t have to be displaced to be able to go build?” Gee asked.

KIRO host Ursula Reutin said public contracting laws limit what the agency can do, because contracts generally have to go to the lowest bidder. Gee pushed back, asking whether the architect had been picked that way.

“They already have an architect,” he responded. “Did they take the lowest bid for the architect? You guys can look it up.”

A tax that brought in more than expected

Ursula said what stood out to her was how much money the agency now has. It is funded by a 5% tax that businesses pay on the part of an employee’s pay above $1 million. That tax brought in $136 million last year and another $59 million in the first half of 2026, according to The Stranger.

She added that she had been skeptical from the start because voters approved the agency without many specifics.

“I’m not in favor of giving blank checks without things being designated and specifically stated in terms of what is going to be done with that money,” Ursula said.

Gee noted the Seattle City Council would continue to oversee the project.

Ursula also credited the agency for trying something new. Its first purchase was Elara at the Market, a 150-unit building in Belltown. The agency froze rents for current tenants for two years and gave them free transit passes, according to The Urbanist.

“So many things that we’ve tried haven’t been working,” Ursula said.

Gee summed it up.

“We just want to make sure that the people that built the culture of the Central District have a seat at the table when it’s time to build,” he said.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio.