This mixed-use project is planned for a unique site in downtown Bellingham. Here’s more
A five-story, mixed-use housing and commercial project is proposed in downtown Bellingham on the site of a former dairy.
The State Street Creamery project, named for the site’s history, at 820 N. State Street will involve the demolition of the old dairy building. The project is expected to provide 98 units of rental housing, including studios, one-bedroom units and two-bedroom units, according to Scarlet Ponder with The RJ Group, the company managing the project.
So far a rental price for the apartments has not been set, although they will be priced at the market rate with no affordable units expected in the project, Ponder said.
In order to be considered affordable, housing costs can’t exceed 30% of a family’s gross income and must serve families making 80% or less of the area median income, according to the city of Bellingham.
Local housing need exists
The State Street Creamery project will help meet the need for more housing in the community in terms of the number of units.
The state established targeted housing goals for every county in Washington over the next 20 years. By 2044, Whatcom County is estimated to need almost 35,000 new housing units. About 22,000 of those units, more than 60%, need to be affordable, according to Blake Lyon, Bellingham’s director of planning & community development.
Bellingham makes up about 48% of the housing production in the county. So the city will need to produce almost 17,000 total housing units to help meet the goal. More than 10,000 of those need to be affordable. To stay on track, the city would need to build more than 500 affordable housing units every year.
Affordability is lagging
Rental costs have been increasing exponentially in Bellingham and Whatcom County over the last several years. As of May 2023, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Bellingham is $1,450, according to data from Zumper.
“Oftentimes, the home prices, whether it’s a for-sale product or a rental product, especially in the last five years, outpace the gains people have made in terms of income,” Lyon said. “What we see, kind of as a representation of that is that there are more and more people falling into this category of what we call ‘cost-burdened.’”
In Bellingham, 56% of renters are cost-burdened, according to data from the city. There are nearly three times as many cost-burdened renter households in Bellingham as there are cost-burdened homeowner households. Renters living throughout Whatcom County spend a median of 32.9% of household income on housing costs, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017-2021 American Community Survey.
A household is considered cost-burdened when more than 30% of income is paid toward housing. Severely cost-burdened households pay more than 50%.
Unique features
The project will feature about 8,400 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor facing North State Street.
The building is expected to have a combination of underground structured parking as well as surface parking. It will also feature 77 bike parking spaces, including an indoor bike room and exterior bike parking spaces to accommodate long-term and short-term bike parking.
The southwest-facing units on floors 3-5 will feature views of Bellingham Bay.
Much of the project design accounts for sustainability, with the building expected to be entirely electric and the large Douglas Fir tree on the property expected to be preserved.
The project will also feature a small, raised patio on the corner of Berry Street and North State Street, wood canopies extending over the commercial businesses and a pedestrian plaza behind the building.
Cost and timeline
The project’s eventual cost is currently unknown, Ponder told The Herald.
The city of Bellingham is expected to begin a design review of the building in June, with permit applications expected to be submitted this summer. Pending all permit approvals, construction is expected to begin in March after the demolition of the existing building on site, which was built in 1949.
The existing building has been occupied by other commercial businesses over the years but is currently vacant.
Construction is expected to be completed in summer 2025.
The building’s design was done by Bellingham-based RMC Architects and will be managed by The RJ Group. RJ Group has managed several other large housing projects in Bellingham, including The Crescent apartments in the Cordata neighborhood and the Alpen Grove townhome community located behind Costco in north Bellingham.
This story was originally published May 26, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
