Published June 2003

Stanwood center to add
44 apartments

By Scott Morris
Herald Writer

The Stanwood Senior Center broke ground in May on a major expansion, one that will double its capacity to house low-income seniors.

The senior center already has 41 one-bedroom apartments that it built during the early 1990s.

The new, roughly $4 million project will add 44 additional 600-square-foot apartments in a separate three-story building next door.

The new building, which is scheduled to be finished within a year, will be called Lincoln School Senior Apartments.

Chuck Durland, the senior center’s executive director, said the expansion is the first phase of a master plan that could someday include adding a multipurpose room, kitchen, thrift store and glass corridor to connect the center.

“Finally, after living hand-to-mouth for many years trying to make it happen, through the foresight of the board of directors, we actually have quite a large senior center for such a small town,” Durland said.

The new apartments are being financed primarily through a $3.7 million grant from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development.

The apartments will be aimed at seniors whose annual income is below 30 percent of the median income for Snohomish County residents — less than $20,000 per year.

That income can be adjusted to take medical bills into account.

Durland said HUD will subsidize 70 percent of the rent for those who qualify.

The senior center should not have any problem finding tenants, Durland said.

Ever since the center built its first 25 apartments in 1991, demand has created waiting lists, even after the center added a wing with 16 more units in 1994.

The existing apartments were supposed to be helping folks living at the 50 percent income level compared to the county’s median, but Durland said many seniors in the area are trying to manage on much less money.

“So this has enabled a lot of people, particularly women who are living on their Social Security, to have a decent place to live,” Durland said.

The center hired Designs Northwest Architects of Stanwood and The Zervas Group of Bellingham to design the new building.

Dan Nelson of the Stanwood firm said the seniors wanted him to update the old building’s design with something complementary but more contemporary.

The old building is the former Stanwood High School, which the school district has not used since 1972.

“The interesting thing is we’ve talked with a number of (seniors) who have actually gone to school there,” Nelson said.

The center got its start in the old school’s basement, and the seniors bought the 4.2-acre property in 1988. Gradually, the seniors expanded into the building’s upper floors, building offices and apartments.

The current project was given a big boost by the expertise of Senior Services, a nonprofit group that Durland said helped his group win a competitive statewide bidding process for the HUD funds.

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