$6.5 million project bringing dozens of townhomes to downtown Kennewick
As vacant lots inside city limits become all but nonexistent in Tri-Cities, a trend is emerging of replacing existing homes with multi-family projects.
One of the latest in Kennewick is a 36-unit townhome complex being built where a 1970’s-era house, barn and outbuildings once stood
The 2-acre parcel on Entiat Avenue few blocks east of Fruitland Street already was zoned for high density residential uses.
PMI Inc., a Kennewick a masonry company that’s work can be found throughout Tri-Cities, bought the land two years ago for $384,000. Damian Padilla owns PMI Holdings and, along with and Christy Padilla, owns Padilla VI LLC.
The six-building, $6.5 million project at 911 W. Entiat Ave. is next to the BNSF Railway tracks and is just down the street from Fruitland Park.
It’s an area where single-family homes dominate the housing landscape.
The sale listing on Realtor.com at the time read that it was within Kennewick’s downtown/waterfront Commerce Opportunity Zone, which provides tax benefits for investors.
A 2013-17 study for the city of Kennewick about the downtown opportunity zone showed that only 14 percent of all housing was small, multi-family buildings and less than 1 percent were medium and large multi-family buildings.
City permits show the new units will be single-family units, adding to the extremely tight inventory of homes for sale and rent in Tri-Cities.
The units will be three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms in up to 1,500 square feet. The smaller townhouses will be roughly 1,300 square feet with two bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
It’s the second townhouse project in Kennewick currently under construction where homes once stood.
Another $2 million townhouse complex is underway in Kennewick on Seventh Avenue after three small homes were relocated to another site.