January 26, 2022

Construction begins on homeless shelter in Bellevue

Rendering by Notion Workshop [enlarge]

Congregations for the Homeless, the sole provider of overnight shelter for adult men in East King County, will run the center.

Ground has been broken at 13668 S.E. Eastgate Way, the soon to be site of a 100-bed shelter for homeless men. Described as a place of “health, hope and healing”, the shelter will be run by Congregations for the Homeless (CFH) and is being developed by CFH in partnership with Inland Group and Horizon Housing Alliance, In addition to the 100 beds, the three-story wood framed complex will include a 125-person day center and offices for supportive services and CFH administration. The day center includes bathrooms, medical room, storage/donation

areas, staff/guest laundry, meeting rooms, and CFH workspaces. The main level has a full kitchen, dining area, bathrooms, and offices/workspace for service providers. The shelter portion will contain bathrooms and showers, guest laundry, respite spaces, storage, and operable divider(s) to separate sleeping areas as needed. Outdoor areas will incorporate space for gardening, observing nature, seating and a designated covered smoking area. JPL-A is the project architect with Block Architects consulting.

A groundbreaking event was held to mark the start of construction on Jan 12th. Spokane based Inland Construction is the general contractor with a target completion date of late 2022 or early 2023. The shelter is partially funded by Microsoft Corp. The tech giant contributed a $3 million bridge loan to the project as part of its broader $750 million housing initiative. As reported in the Puget Sound Business Journal, the total project cost is $16 million with the majority of funds coming from public sources.

The shelter is part of a larger $186 million homeless shelter and supportive housing campus to be built on 9.8 acres of surplus King County property in Eastgate. The other elements are Plymouth Housings 95-unit Eastgate Permanent Supportive Housing, which broke ground in September 2021 and Inland Groups Polaris as Eastgate which will provide 353 units of workforce housing. This project will be the first permanent supportive housing program in Bellevue.