McKinley Eastside Homes
Tacoma, WA
The overall project comprises the redevelopment of a 5,000-sf parcel located on a Designated Core Pedestrian Street within the McKinley Neighborhood Center in Tacoma. The proposed 10,000 square foot mixed-use building has two street-front commercial spaces, 17 apartments, garage parking for 2 vehicles, a bike room, and other building support spaces.
The residential portion of the building contains sixteen efficiency dwelling units and a one-bedroom unit developed as affordable housing for veterans transitioning from homelessness. The street-front commercial spaces will house the non-profit developer’s office and a community café, providing on-site wrap-around services and employment opportunities for formerly homeless veterans.
Behind the café, a semi-public courtyard offers a gathering space where cafe visitors and building residents can mingle. Trees and native landscaping in the building’s shared outdoor space provide a connection to nature, shade, quiet, and improved air quality. Two apartments face directly onto the courtyard at ground level, while eight additional apartments look over and through the courtyard’s tree canopy above.
Although the project site is located on one of Tacoma’s Designated Core Pedestrian Streets, this section of McKinley Ave also experiences high motor vehicle volumes. To buffer residents, staff, and café visitors from traffic noise, the design team envisioned a micro-plaza defined by wood benches and steel planter boxes containing street trees and low shrubs. The micro-plaza facilitates a wheelchair accessible transition from the public sidewalk to the apartment building and café entrances, delineates the public-private edge at the parcel boundary, and enhances the pedestrian experience and visual appeal of the streetscape.
Besides aesthetics, the attractiveness of an area for walking depends on a perception of safety, and the building is designed accordingly. In addition to the micro-plaza, the street-facing café and office space, 13 out of 17 apartments have floor-to-ceiling windows facing McKinley Ave and/or the adjacent city park. All these “eyes on the street” promote public safety around the building by limiting opportunities for mischief and more serious offenses to go unnoticed.
Floating above the first level, the primary residential volume is painted in shades of green. Within this “green zone” tall windows are emphasized with vertical fins. A two-story volume containing the garage and one-bedroom apartment above, and a three-story volume containing the studios directly above the cafe space, are finished out with white siding and punched openings. The white volumes interlock with the south-west and north-east corners of the green volume.
An example of form follows function, the strategy to express the building massing as three blocks originated from required clearances at electrical utility infrastructure along the alley side and screening for rooftop mechanical equipment at the street side. Next, a logical application of color and window details was utilized to differentiate the volumes geometrically as well as the functions within them. As we like to say, “architecture that makes sense.”
The exterior building design showcases the brand colors of CJK Community Homes, a Tacoma non-profit organization committed to reducing the impact of poverty by providing clean, safe, contemporary and affordable housing and proven supportive case management services to low-income Pierce County residents. Learn more about this powerful and effective organization and how to support their work here: CJK Community Homes
