Sound on 12th.

Project brief

Sound on 12th is an eight-story apartment building with 92 units at 157 12th Ave in Seattle, near Yesler Terrace and Seattle University. Kamiak Real Estate and Umtanum Build developed it, Workshop AD designed it, and Karen Kiest Landscape Architects handled the landscape. Synergy Construction built the reinforced-concrete structure. Its homes are studios and studios with dens, roughly 256 to 414 square feet, above a ground-floor retail space of about 1,750 square feet facing 12th Ave. The building has no parking.

The project went before the Central Area Design Review Board in August 2018 as a seven-story, 78-unit scheme. That version had a C-shaped plan wrapped around a south-facing courtyard, and the design later grew to its final eight stories and 92 units. Shared spaces include a roof terrace and a lounge. Apartments have floor-to-ceiling windows, and the building offers controlled access and composting. Construction began in late 2021. In April 2025, Chief Seattle Club bought the building for $29 million and renamed it Sweetgrass Flats. It opened in 2025 as permanent supportive housing, with 84 homes for people leaving chronic homelessness.

In 2019, BOGZA produced exterior renderings of the building for Kamiak. They include a dusk view of the dark checkerboard facade rising above a lit storefront on the street.