SEATTLE — The Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD) has acquired its first multifamily property since city voters approved the creation of the independent public development authority in 2023. Spartanburg, South Carolina-based Johnson Development Associates sold Elara at the Market to SSHD for $60.9 million. Kidder Mathews arranged the sale. The 150-unit property, which Johnson Development Associates built in 2017, is located half a mile northwest of Pike Place Market. In 2023, Seattle city residents voted on Initiative 135, a local citizen-led ballot measure that officially chartered SSHD. In 2025, city voters went to the polls again to pass Proposition 1A, approving a local city tax on high-earning corporations to fund the public development authority. The city maintains the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), which primarily serves the city’s poorest residents, mostly backed by federal HUD programs that fund households earning 30 percent or less of the area median income (AMI). SSHD, on the other hand, serves a middle bracket of residents earning up to 120 percent of AMI, specifically designed to help workforce renters, such as teachers and service industry workers — those renters who earn too much to qualify for public housing but not enough to afford market-rate rents. Johnson …
