Picture This!
What's
new this week in transportation
Home for the holidays at the first bus Transit-Oriented
Development in the nation
Instead of fighting
traffic from Sammamish to get to work, Rebecca Reed can now walk to her job at
the Safeway store in the Overlake area. She helps decorate the tree in
the rental office at the new Village at Overlake Station, where she has just
moved in. The 308-units of affordable housing are built over an existing
King Country Metro Park and Ride lot, so working families have the option of
having breakfast together then taking the elevator downstairs to place children
at the on-site child care center and catching a bus.
Just in time for the holidays, new
affordable housing has been "unwrapped" above a King County Metro Park and Ride
lot in Redmond. The Village at Overlake Station
is a new 308-unit affordable housing complex combined with a day-care facility
and a bus transit center. It is the first transit-oriented development (TOD) in
the nation attached to a transit center, and for Eastside workers it means a
chance to live closer to their jobs in an area where affordable housing is
scarce.
The idea behind TOD is simple: why not put new housing closer to where the jobs
and transit lines already exist? That will reduce the amount of driving people
have to do, and make life a lot easier for people who live there. TOD
helps reduce congestion and manage the region's growth at the same time.
The Village at Overlake Station opened Dec. 11th, three months ahead of schedule,
and one-third of the 308 units have already been rented. The
complex consists of three residential buildings with studio, one-, two- and
three-bedroom apartments, some with territorial views, starting at $660 per
month. All units at the complex are targeted to tenants whose incomes are at or
below 60 percent of the area’s median income, approximately $43,000 for a
family of four.
The complex is located near
Microsoft, Nintendo and other major Eastside businesses, making it ideal for
working families who want to live near their jobs on the Eastside. In
front of the complex is a bus circle for the Overlake Transit Station, which is
scheduled to reopen in February. Below the buildings is the Overlake Park
and Ride lot; parking will be shared between residents and daytime
park-and-ride commuters.
New residents will get free bus passes for up to two
years to encourage transit use at the property. Shared Flexcars will be
available on-site for tenant use at any time day or night. Residents will
also
soon have access to an on-site, 4,500-square-foot day-care facility, to
be operated by Hopelink, a local nonprofit human-services agency.
The complex also provides a boon to area employers. "Having such
wonderful rental housing available to our employees is an important employment
stabilizer. When staff live close to work they are more apt to remain with us
for the long term," says Tina Thompson, human resources manager at Eurest
Dining Services.
The King County Housing Authority financed the construction of
the complex with the help of public and private partners, including King County,
the City of Redmond, Columbia Housing and Fannie Mae.
For more information about the Village at Overlake
Station, you can call (425) 746-3338.
And you can take a look inside the Village at Overlake
Station in
January on the next edition of Inside Transportation, now in
post-production for cablecast on CTV, King County Civic Television.
Related links
King
County Transit-Oriented Development Web site
"Housing
prospects are looking up at Overlake," Seattle P-I, Dec. 12, 2001
"Redmond
tenants move in with Metro: First units arrive early at transit center Village,"
Eastside Journal, Dec. 11, 2001
"County
brings transit home — literally," Seattle Times, Dec. 10, 2001
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