Making an impact and tackling difficult social and health issues through real estate is central to developer Antony Chiang’s career goals, he says.

Chiang, founding partner of Spokane-based development company Millennium Northwest LLC, says he’s committed to developing both market-rate and workforce housing in the Spokane area through partnerships with real estate and construction professionals.

He’s one of three principals at Millennium Northwest, along with his wife, Caroline Yu, and business partner, James Gallina.

Chiang estimates that, in the last 13 years, he’s been involved in bringing about $30 million worth of developments and about 200 combined market-rate and workforce housing units to the Spokane area through both his work with Empire Health Foundation and with Millennium Northwest. Workforce housing is targeted at lower- to middle-income households that typically earn too much to qualify for conventional affordable housing subsidies.

Millennium Northwest currently is involved in the development of two more Millennium projects and three others in the pipeline for the development of workforce housing.

One current project, Millennium Monroe, is an 89-unit, mixed-use complex featuring 30,000 square feet of commercial space to be anchored by a new headquarters for Indaba Coffee LLC. That development, located at 2002 N. Monroe, will occupy a city block and is valued at about $10 million.

Millennium Northwest is preparing to develop a 60-unit, mixed-use building with another Spokane real estate company in the Garland District.

Greater Northwest Assets LLC is helping Millennium Northwest develop the $10.5 million project, tentatively dubbed Millennium North Hill/Garland. Greater Northwest Assets is governed by Keith Riddle and business partner Paul Cassell.

Chiang says he’s constantly asking himself how Millennium Northwest can produce projects that have a greater impact. He says his goal for the company is to develop business partnerships continually and to become known eventually as the developer of walkable districts that will “improve Spokane and catalyze more vibrant neighborhoods.”

He says the company has decided to partner with nonprofit refugee organizations and faith-based organizations to create a pipeline of workforce housing here.

For example, Chiang says Millennium Northwest is collaborating with Thrive International, a Spokane-based refugee aid agency led by Mark Finney.

“The hope is to do a 20- to 40-unit project,” with that organization, he says.

Millennium Northwest also is collaborating with another large nonprofit in northwest Spokane regarding a potential mixed-use project.

“I can’t yet talk about that project, but … those projects are taking longer and are harder to get into the ground,” he says. “If it was easy to build workforce housing, we’d have a lot more of it.”

Chiang’s background includes a blend of high-tech, nonprofit, legal, and business experience. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering computer science from the University of California Berkeley followed by a law degree from Stanford Law School. Prior to becoming a developer, Chiang worked as an attorney, then as president and CEO of a couple of technology companies, followed by a transition to working with nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay area.

Chiang was first introduced to the city of Spokane as the newly recruited founding president of the Empire Health Foundation, a Spokane-based philanthropic nonprofit formed through the sale of Deaconess and Valley hospitals in 2008.

Chiang served as president of the nonprofit for nearly 10 years.

“We had a fantastic initiative to reduce the entry rate into foster care,” he says. “It was actually that foster care initiative where we first partnered with Catholic Charities to help build more affordable housing to try to keep families together.”

That collaboration led to a partnership with Spokane Housing Ventures to bring affordable housing to the Hillyard neighborhood, which is where Chiang says his interest in real estate and desire to impact the community intersected and grew.

He says he learned about real estate investment from his parents, who are first-generation immigrants from Taiwan and have been investing in real estate for about 50 years.

“My wife and I kind of followed in their footsteps. We began doing our own projects both in California and then in Spokane while I was at Empire Health Foundation,” he says. “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. That was a lot of the spirit at Empire Health Foundation, and I think we tried to bring that spirit to Millennium.”

Chiang credits Yu for bringing Millennium’s first new construction development online four years ago, the 27-unit Millennium by Kendall Yards, at 1310 W. College, in Spokane.

“Caroline was the driving force behind our first ground-up project,” he says. “We also had a lot of great mentors and advisers and coaches, like Jordan Tampien, at 4 Degrees Real Estate.” 

Chiang says as a private developer, he’s worked to establish long-lasting relationships with investors, construction companies, and architects that help deliver Millennium Northwest’s goals.

Millennium Northwest’s design partner is Bernardo Wills, of Spokane, and the company’s main contractor is Baker Construction & Development Inc.

Chiang acknowledges that developing both workforce and market-rate housing might not make sense for other private developers that are likely to get a better return on market-rate projects. However, he contends it’s worth it to ease the burden on nonprofits to produce workforce housing.

“It’s hard to justify putting your time into a workforce project, so it’s really left to our nonprofit ecosystem to produce most of the workforce housing,” he says. “But the challenge with that is a limitation on capital and resources. What helps keep me going is incredible partners, and there’s such a huge need, we’re hoping to do our part.”