How Leveraging Partnerships Uplifts Community Voices

We all know the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” But did you know that it takes a village to—well, create a village? Intentional partnerships between key players build strong communities. Of course, architects, contractors, engineers, and other construction industry collaborators transform ethereal dreams and ideas into physical homes. However, industry partnerships with actual residents and community organizations solve housing needs and drive local growth.

At the intersection of 24th Avenue and East Union Street in Seattle’s Central District, two vibrant multi-unit residential developments, Liberty Bank Building and Midtown Square, reflect the success of community input, strategic public and private partnerships, and skilled execution by the design and construction teams. Through deliberate efforts to engage local citizens and organizations, Liberty Bank Building and Midtown Square pay tribute to the Central District’s identity as a historically Black neighborhood while offering inviting places to live and local businesses to reinvigorate the area.

Liberty Bank Building

The Power of Local Alliances

Teaming up with community organizations provides the opportunity to identify and resolve the tenants’ and area’s specific needs. The Central District provided an established Black community in Seattle for generations, but gentrification and rising costs of living displaced low-income residents. Seattle-based Community Roots Housing, an affordable housing developer, and Lake Union Partners, a private real estate developer, reached out to various local groups to understand how Liberty Bank Building and Midtown Square can best tackle the displacement of this Central District population.

For Liberty Bank Building, Africatown Community Land Trust, Black Community Impact Alliance, and Byrd Barr Place worked with Community Roots Housing and the architect, Mithun, to offer 115 permanently affordable homes for households at or below 60% of area median income (AMI). Located across the street from Liberty Bank Building, Midtown Square represents another fruitful collaboration between private developers and nonprofit organizations. Led by Lake Union Partners, local groups Crescent Collaborative, Community Roots Housing, Forterra, and Africatown Community Land Trust united around a community-driven vision to address the displacement and disinvestment of the low-income Black community. Together, the development partners of both projects restored some of the lost culture and brought Black businesses and residents back to the neighborhood.

Uplifting Community Voices

The project collaborators leveraged the power of groundbreaking partnerships to accelerate community-driven development and reshape the neighborhood’s future. Multiple meetings held by developers, architects, and Africatown Community Land Trust included Central District neighborhood leaders and other locals to provide input on Liberty Bank Building’s and Midtown Square’s designs. Upon understanding the neighborhood’s complexities and the residents’ preferences, Midtown Square’s developers and design team intentionally reached out to minority subcontractors who were unaware of the project. For both housing developments, local Black artists created permanent art pieces that serve as a living cultural monument to the local community. From murals on the building facades to bringing in Black-owned businesses, the mixed-use developments attract residents and visitors to celebrate the Central District’s cultural identity.

Liberty Bank Building

Proud Partnerships Progress Possibilities

Deliberate project partnerships between housing developers and community organizations invite informed, diverse voices to establish inviting homes and drive local growth. Liberty Bank Building and Midtown Square exemplify what is possible when the people most affected by displacement and cultural erasure are prioritized in urban developments.

Midtown Square

For Coughlin Porter Lundeen, taking part in these projects as civil and structural engineers means a lot to us. Our human-centric affordable housing projects serve the entire community, not just individual residents or families who live in these buildings. Familiarizing ourselves with local individuals and their concerns allows us to create more informed design decisions and put intentionality into the impactful projects we choose to do, whether they are other housing projects or different kinds of places that serve the region. By uplifting powerful community visions, we help these dreams transform into reality and strengthen the urban fabric people call home.

Interested in learning more about the community impact behind projects? Contact us here.

Partners: Walsh Construction Co., Mithun, Weinstein A+U, W.G. Clark Construction
Photography by: Kevin Scott (Liberty Bank), Rafael Soldi (Midtown Square)