Gatewood Hotel To House Homeless

Adding to his list of havens for Seattle's homeless, Mayor Norm Rice today announced a $3.9 million renovation of a boarded-up hotel near Pike Place Market.

The empty four-story Gatewood Hotel at 107 Pine St. is to open next February after renovation into 96 single-occupancy rooms for homeless adults.

The mayor hailed the project as the next step in housing the homeless because, "It will provide something more permanent than shelter beds."

"This is a beacon of hope for housing and for the community," he said, stressing the importance of the public-private partnership in development of low-income housing.

Renovation will begin in July. Homeless men and women living at the Gatewood will pay only 30 percent of their income for rent. The rest will be paid through a $3.3 million subsidy from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In planning renovation of the Gatewood, Rice continued to make good on his promise to provide permanent housing for the homeless instead of simply expanding mat-on-the-floor shelters. In late March, as winter ended and city-sponsored emergency shelters were scheduled to close, Rice announced that the city would help with the $2.4 million purchase and renovation of an Aurora Avenue North motel to provide temporary housing for 66 homeless people.

A similar transitional residence for two dozen women also has been leased in the Denny Regrade as part of Rice's program.

The Gatewood, empty since the mid-1980s, will be operated by Plymouth Housing Group, which provides shelter for more than 270 low-income people in six buildings.

With the help of city and Pike Place Market officials, Plymouth has obtained a 25-year lease of the Gatewood from Sam Israel's Samis Land Co., which owns small and medium-sized downtown buildings.

In lease negotiations, Israel, now in a nursing home, was represented by his nephews, David and Eddie Hasson, who helped move the project forward, according to city officials. The project began more than two years ago after a group of low-income-housing advocates broke into the abandoned Gatewood and refused to leave until 17 were arrested. Some months after the sit-in, the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA), which operates housing in the market, began negotiations with Israel that culminated in today's announcement.

Getting HUD to commit rent subsidies to a project that is leased rather than owned by the operator caused some of the delay, said D'Anne Mount, spokeswoman for the Department of Community Development, which coordinated the project.

Of the approximately $3.9 million renovation cost, $1.5 million comes from Prescott, the company owned by developers Dick Clotfelter and Gary Carpenter. Under a city program later declared unconstitutional, the company committed the money when it tore down low-income housing near Sixth Avenue and Union Street to make way for Pacific First Centre.

The state contributed $350,000, and the balance of about $2 million is to be paid by the city.