A cooperative housing community for seniors and retirees is in the planning stages in Puyallup.

The Village Cooperative of Puyallup, proposed for a vacant, four-acre site at the corner of 39th Avenue Southwest and 17th Street Southwest near the Fruitland Grange, will include 57 homes in a three-story building. The dwellings will have one-bedroom and two-bedroom floorplans and range in size from 900 square feet to 1,600 square feet.

The Minnesota-based parent company of the project is Real Estate Equities Development, which has developed 40 Village Cooperative projects with a combined 2,200 homes in urban and suburban areas of the western and midwestern U.S.

In cooperative communities, residents own equity shares of the development through a non-profit co-op corporation. The corporation holds title to the entire property, including dwellings, and assumes the mortgage, tax and other obligations necessary to finance and operate the facility. Residents elect a governing board of directors from among the co-op residents/members to oversees policies, spending and operations of the cooperative.

The Puyallup project is the second Village Cooperative community in Washington, following one in Olympia that was announced last spring. The co-op communities are also in seven other states—Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.