Eighty-two new rental apartments built along Eighth Avenue Southwest just south of Roxbury Street will open Aug. 1 in town houses painted green, apricot, purple, yellow, periwinkle blue and other colors. They are the first units of a phase called Seola Crossing that will go to residents of the former Park Lake Homes, which stood where Greenbridge is now under construction.

Government officials gathered Friday to celebrate the upcoming opening of the first batch of town house apartments in the new Greenbridge housing development.

The event also marked the "beginning" of remodeling work on the Jim Wiley Community Center. Much of the building has already been gutted and the first layer of a new roof installed. The Wiley Center will continue as the home of the Southwest Boys and Girls Club, but the club will share the renovated building with Neighborhood House, Highline Community College and the King County Housing Authority.

At the opening ceremony, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jim McDermott took swipes at the Bush administration for eliminating money for the federal housing program that is transforming Park Lake Homes into Greenbridge.

Murray told the grand-opening crowd of more than 200 that the event had infused her with new energy to fight for money for the HOPE VI federal housing program when she returns to the nation's capitol.

"This year the budget came with no money for HOPE VI," Murray said. "And they even asked for $100 million back from last year's appropriation.

"I'll go back to Washington D.C. and tell them they should see the faces in Greenbridge," Murray told the whooping crowd.

Park Lake Homes and High Point both received about $35 million in federal money to help each makeover project. Private investors also buy parts of the former low-income housing development and build market-rate homes among the new low-income rentals.

The Bush administration did not ask Congress for money to keep the HOPE VI program going, Murray said.

"We've had to fight tooth and nail to get this money," Rep. Jim McDermott said. "We've got to take back one or the other house (of Congress) in the next election."

"The federal government has to be an engine for change," McDermott said.

A cheer went up when Peter Orser, chairman of the King County Housing Authority, told the crowd that 32 former Park Lake residents would not be returning because they'd bought homes of their own.

North Highline Fire Marshal and former Park Lake Homes resident Scott LaVielle told of growing up in the housing project with seven brothers and sisters and just their mother. He is leading the fund-raising effort to renovate the Jim Wiley Community Center. So far, about $3.6 million has been raised toward a goal of $5.1 million.

"We should be the best we can be, not the worst that was done to us," LaVielle said.

Minh Huynh, another former Park Lake resident, told the crowd his family moved to Park Lake in 1998 because it was "affordable, safe and diverse." Living there enabled his family to "focus on our future" and complete work on an engineering degree from the University of Washington, he said.

Tim St. Clair can be reached at tstclair@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.