142-unit apartment complex in Bellingham will move the needle on housing supply
A 142-unit apartment complex long in the making is on its way to Bellingham after a city tax exemption program helped developers make the project pencil.
The Manning Apartments in Barkley Village will feature 142 market rate units — 11 studios, 99 one-bedrooms and 32 two-bedrooms — in two buildings above a 154-stall underground parking garage.
The project broke ground this month and is expected to welcome residents by mid-2027.
Project design initially began in 2021 with the goal of construction starting in 2023. But it stalled due to financial infeasibility related to the cost of construction and financing.
Ben Besley is the CEO of the Talbot Group, which is the management and development company for Barkley Village. He said rather than move forward with a project that didn’t quite check all the boxes, they chose to push pause on development and wait for the right conditions.
After the city expanded its Multi-Family Tax Exemption (MFTE) program in 2025 as a result of Mayor Kim Lund’s 2024 “Expanding Housing Options in Bellingham” executive order, the developers were able to take advantage of that to move the project forward, Besley told The Herald.
“As developers, it’s our business to build housing. But we also do it the way we do it and where we do it because we think it’s good for the city,” Besley said. “It really was an alignment of interests and a push by the mayor to make a couple of key changes that finally got us over the hill so we could get the construction loan and start work.”
The MFTE Program provides a tax incentive designed to encourage development of multifamily units within Bellingham’s urban villages. In the case of The Manning, the program provides the developer with an eight-year tax exemption on the assessed improvements of the project.
City of Bellingham Planning and Community Development Director Blake Lyon told The Herald this project demonstrates the power of these tools to move the needle on housing development in the city.
“The Manning project demonstrates what’s possible when cities and the housing industry collaborate to find housing solutions that work,” Lyon told The Herald.
Lyon said other elements in the executive order also supported the project, including calls for proactive communication with and support of applicants, seeking to simplify project reviews when possible, and the elimination of parking mandates.
“The Manning was truly a collaborative project between the Talbot Group and city staff. They worked together to identify potential issues early, solved them together, and were able to reduce the permitting time. This has the effect of getting more housing into the community faster,” Lyon said.
Barkley Village has about 50 acres of land set aside for housing development, with plans to bring on more projects of different styles in the coming years.
“We absolutely recognize the need for more housing of all types throughout the city, and we’re going to do everything we can to provide different types of housing here in Barkley Village,” Besley said.
In 2008, the Talbot Group built the Drake Condominiums, its first housing development in Barkley Village, according to Besley. It was followed by the Cornerstone apartments in 2011 and the Weatherby Apartments in 2022. The group then sold land to Mercy Housing, which most recently developed the affordable Trailview Apartments in 2023.
Besley said Bellingham has much more progressive housing policy than other metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest. He said he believes it’s up to the private sector to continue to take advantage of the city’s incentives to continue addressing the housing crisis.
“Housing affordability and supply is a huge issue and at the foundation of a lot of larger economic challenges that families are facing,” Besley said. “But I think the way we solve it is just by doing what we do, getting to work and getting things built.”
The state established targeted housing goals for every county in Washington over the next 20 years. Between 2024 and 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 the city.
Bellingham makes up about 48% of the housing production in Whatcom County. So the city needs to produce almost 17,000 total housing units to help meet the goal. More than 10,000 of those need to be affordable.
Barkley Village, where this development will take place, is one of Bellingham’s urban villages, which support mixed residential and commercial neighborhoods. Urban villages comprise less than 4% of the city’s land area but are expected to accommodate 30 percent of future growth, according to the city.
There are 961 residential units — 627 multifamily units and 334 single-family units — currently under construction in Bellingham. Another 244 residential units — 167 multifamily units and 77 single-family units — are currently undergoing the application and review process for future construction in Bellingham.
Permits for 534 new residential units were issued in Bellingham in 2024.
This story was originally published December 26, 2025 at 5:25 AM.
