MILLWORKS

Millworks in Bellingham, Washington won a 2024 Charles L. Edson Tax Credit Excellence Award in the Small Metropolitan Area category.

Millworks Family Housing is located in the Port of Bellingham’s waterfront redevelopment district in the heart of downtown Bellingham, Washington. The development provides 83 homes of energy-efficient, permanently affordable family housing restricted to households at 30 percent, 50 percent, and 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), including 15 homes serving formerly homeless households. Over half of the homes are critically needed family-sized 2- and 3-bedroom apartments, and Mercy Housing Northwest provides on-site resident services in the building, with a special emphasis on out of school time and educational programming.

The ground floor is home to a six-classroom Early Learning Center operated by the YMCA of Whatcom County. The project received occupancy a month ahead of schedule at the beginning of March 2024. Millworks Family Housing is highly sustainable using ~60kW solar array, all-electric design, and connection to the waterfront District Energy system. Additionally, the project uses the new Washington State Department of Ecology Healthy Housing cleanup program designed to clean up contaminated sites for affordable housing. This is the first development in Whatcom County and second completed in the state to use this approach. With the help of Whatcom Community Foundation, the state Department of Ecology, and other partners, Millworks Family Housing is transforming a contaminated site on the waterfront into a hub for safe, stable, and affordable housing, childcare, food production, and job accessibility.

The development represents the efforts of Mercy Housing Northwest and the National Equity Fund to preserve, improve, and increase affordable housing opportunities in Bellingham, Washington.