Seattle is one of the top cities for live-work-play apartments

A total of 7,100 mixed-use apartments have been completed in Seattle since 2012, per a report from RentCafe, a national apartment-search website.

Why it matters: Rental communities that include residential, office and retail space gained a foothold in the last decade, especially as the pandemic heightened renters' preference for having daily activities close at hand, the report found.

What they found: 14% of the units built in Seattle between 2012 and 2021 were mixed-use, per RentCafe.

• That puts Seattle among the top 20 cities for its share of new apartment buildings that combine residential, office and retail.

Yes, but: We trail 16 other cities — including San Francisco, Columbus, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, New York and Atlanta — when it comes to our focus on adding mixed-use developments.

Zoom out: Nationwide, apartments in "live-work-play" buildings quadrupled compared to 10 years ago, from 10,000 to 43,000 apartments per year, according to Yardi Matrix data.

The bottom line: Blending different types of real estate is one way cities are evolving in the era of remote and hybrid work.