Just a few months ago Washington State and Seattle struggled to find a tenant for this amazing building .. the iconic and historic former United States Public Health Service Hospital on Beacon Hill!
After Amazon moved to SLU, no commercial tenant wanted the place. So the powers that be filled the place up with a hodge podge of state agencies. The “rent,” of course, comes from the tax payers.
Why couldn’t we have found a non profit (or created one) that would rent the same place to a mix of people with high rents (for the penthouses) and lower rent for the different levels? The property, including a lovely surrounding park, could still belong to the city .. eliminating the huge cost of private loans needed to fix the place up. A non profit could run “t Homes” or even own it without the need to make a huge capital gains profit before the real estate bubble bursts.
And some folks could get great homes at an affordable rent!