The construction of the Northwest School’s gymnasium + cafeteria + theater + sports field complex at Pike and Bellevue has been underway since September 2012. Thanks to this video recently posted by the school, you can catch up on the project in one minute.
The facility that replaces a former paid parking lot is slated to open in January 2014. CHS has reported that the new Mithun-designed building is part of a wave of multi-million dollar construction projects at Capitol Hill private schools. Meanwhile, Seattle Public Schools will spend a planned $23 million of levy money to open a middle school on Capitol Hill’s Meany campus on 19th Ave by 2017.
In 1980 this location on Pike Street and Bellevue was the site of an aged, wooden row of buildings which included a former house, one of those once common 4-square homes where Seattle once had so many and now only a few remain in neighborhoods that were once residential and for decades, retail and commercial districts. You can see a few which remain on Lower Queen Anne, Capitol Hill and Ballard. A couple of businesses functioned in those spaces which had long seen better days, probably not looking all that great in 1950 but a carpet shop and lunch counter managed to survive into 1980. Then the buildings were pulled down, more like puffed down and that parking lot replaced them. The adjoining business, the Ashworth Funeral Home moved out about the same time, merging with Butterworth and Manning before they too left their corner at Pine and Bellevue.
Northwest School–what a positive addition to this neighborhod. As those blocks east of this location began to change into new business addresses, a street which had seen some improvement over the decades, Pike Street, gets another life with a lot of foot traffic and new vitality. This corner at Pike and Bellevue–changes like this haven’t so dynamic since the streetcar lines were terminated or before I-5 was gashed through the city, separating downtown from Capital Hill.