SEASIDE — A dedication ceremony for Hawk’s Eye Apartments, a collaboration of supportive and workforce housing, was held Tuesday afternoon where the former Red Lion Inn & Suites stood on S. Holladay Drive.

The new apartment complex holds 55 units, most of which are studio units.

Seventeen of the apartments are for supportive housing available through Clatsop Community Action, a social services agencies. Supportive housing is intended as an affordable option for the community’s most vulnerable lower-income residents.

Amy Baker, the executive director of Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, Clatsop County’s mental health and substance abuse treatment provider, said the people who will be placed in supportive housing will have a “chance to start their lives over again.”

“It’s in the meals that people are going to have together,” she said. “It’s going to be in the laughter that they share together. It’s going to be in the community that gets built and lives that get started over. You can’t measure that. It’s not measurable, but it is palpable, and yes, it was worth every single minute of time that you all put into it.”

The rest of the units are intended to house health care workers who are employed across the county.

Mayor Steve Wright said Seaside has a high percentage of older residents who need access to health care providers nearby.

CareOregon purchased the Red Lion building in 2023. The Columbia Pacific Coordinated Care Organization, which is part of CareOregon and oversees the Oregon Health Plan in Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook counties, will fund ongoing operations and management. Organizers aim to have the first renters at Hawk’s Eye in early October.

Mimi Haley, the executive director of the Columbia Pacific CCO, said the need for the project stemmed from a critical shortage of affordable housing.

“It’s not just for low income, vulnerable adults and their families,” she said. “But it also impedes the ability of our health care partners to recruit and maintain a workforce, and that’s why we got to this very strange and innovative model of permanent supportive housing along with workforce housing.”

Representatives from U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici’s office and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley’s office were also present to commemorate the opening, as well as Aimee Kotek Wilson, the first lady of Oregon. Bonamici and Merkley are Oregon Democrats.

“This is the exact kind of resourcefulness, creative thinking and commitment Oregon needs more of, and I just really want to commend the community for bringing such an incredible vision to life,” Kotek Wilson, who is married to Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said.