After years of delays, Vashon HouseHold’s ambitious project, Island Center Homes, has now finally begun construction, with land preparation underway this month, and much more activity on the site expected next month.

The approximately $12 million project, which has been in a planning, funding development and permitting phase since 2017, broke ground in December 2022, despite some pandemic-related challenges, namely the county’s ability to process and complete the permit, as well as the rapidly rising cost of materials.

However, thanks to an additional $5.6 million in funding that Vashon HouseHold secured from the state and county, the nonprofit affordable housing provider is now finally able to move forward.

Construction on the property, located at SW 188th Street and Vashon Highway, will continue throughout the summer of 2024, said Vashon HouseHold director Jason Johnson, with an anticipated opening date of late summer 2024.

When completed, Island Center Homes will add 40 income-qualified rental units to the affordable housing inventory on Vashon — a significant contribution to a community that has seen home prices and property values skyrocket in recent years, and rental units all but vanish.

According to 2020 US Census data, the rental availability rate (the number of overall units versus the number of available units) on Vashon rests effectively at zero percent, while the King County rental inventory overall hovers around 6 percent.

Island Center Homes will help ease the crunch for some of the most vulnerable on Vashon: veterans, seniors, formerly homeless, developmental disabilities, and people engaged in the behavioral health system, said Johnson.

“[Residents] might have been a part of one or more of these groups,” he said.

Vashon HouseHold will partially fill the units in Island Center Homes from its existing wait-list, but also do targeted community outreach to ensure the new housing is made available to the intended population, he added.

When completed, Island Center Homes will be laid out in a cluster on 1.2 acres of the property, which has eight water shares. Five buildings will each contain eight single occupancy suites complete with individual baths. Residents will share kitchen, laundry, and common living areas.

To facilitate a thriving, healthy community at the site, Vashon HouseHold will create shared space agreements among residents and provide interior and exterior custodial and maintenance staff, as it currently does with existing properties.

Providing wrap-around social services will also be a priority; the organization plans to assign a social worker to help meet the existing and emerging needs of residents.

Founded as a nonprofit by community activists in 1990, Vashon HouseHold has long worked to address rental availability on Vashon.

It operates 125 units spread across four properties on the island: J.G. Commons, Eernisse Apartments, Charter House and Mukai Apartments. And last week, it announced the purchase of the 12-unit Islander Apartments building on Vashon — a $2.7 million purchase made possible by buyer-friendly financing from the building’s former owners and donations by island housing advocates to cover the down payment on the purchase.

To additionally meet the need for affordable housing, Vashon HouseHold also established a home-sharing initiative last year, hoping to pair up 30 individuals to share homes by the end of 2023.

To find out more about all of VashonHold’s programs, including its portfolio of affordable homeownership properties on Vashon, visit ​vashonhousehold.org.