Seattle’s I-5 lid hopes get $2M federal ‘research and planning’ boost

(Image: U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal)

(Image: Lid I-5)

Seattle’s hopes for someday lidding I-5 through downtown capping noise and pollution while re-connecting neighborhoods and creating millions in dollars of new development opportunities are getting a federal boost.

U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal representing the WA-07 district including Capitol Hill and much of the city’s central and northern neighborhoods says she has helped secure $2 million in federal funding “for the City of Seattle to continue their research and planning of a project to construct a lid over Interstate 5 (I-5) in downtown Seattle.” Continue reading

Between Capitol Hill and downtown, it is now west on Pine, east on Pike

(Image: SDOT)

West on Pine, east on Pike.

Pine Street is now one-way between the base of Capitol Hill and downtown. The Seattle Department of Transportation says crews were working this weekend to finalize the overhaul to make Pine the westbound component in the new couplet configuration with Pike.

CHS reported here on the $17.45 million project to transform Pike and Pine into one-way streets below Bellevue Ave with protected bike lanes and safety improvements including wider sidewalks as part of the city’s waterfront improvements. 18 months of scheduled work on the project began late last year. Continue reading

Now serving thousands of city workers in Seattle’s Muni Tower: The Central District’s Central Cafe

Important customer: The mayor places his order at the new Central Cafe (Image: @MayorofSeattle)

There’s a new burst of Central District energy in the center of Seattle’s political power. Yes, neighborhood-born and raised Joy Hollingsworth is about to take her seat on the Seattle City Council. But there is another new neighborhood powerhouse moving in.

Mayor Bruce Harrell, a Central District-raised leader himself, is welcoming the new location of E Cherry-born Central Cafe now open in the Seattle Municipal Tower. Continue reading

It is only three blocks but Pike readied for big, bike-friendly one-way change on Capitol Hill

A rendering of the plans for Pike (Image: Waterfront Seattle)

(Image: Waterfront Seattle)

The Seattle Department of Transportation says it is time to begin the transition that will change Pike and Pine between the waterfront and Capitol Hill into one-way streets.

Pike, you’ll go first.

“As early as” this Saturday — depending on weather and the construction schedule — westbound vehicle access to Pike on Capitol Hill between Terry and Bellevue will come to an end.

“This is the first step in making Pike and Pine streets one-way from 1st Ave to Bellevue Ave, Pike St one-way eastbound, and Pine St one-way westbound,” the city says. “Westbound bike travel on Pike St will remain accessible during construction until improved routing to Pine St is established.” Continue reading

With hopes for federal support, Seattle City Council preparing I-5 lid resolution

A rendering from the 2019 study

The Seattle City Council is preparing a resolution calling for the lidding of I-5 through the city, reviving legislative efforts to spark what could be massively expensive — and possibly massively lucrative — developments and tying together neighborhoods in the city’s core.

The council’s Public Assets and Homelessness Committee heard a presentation on the resolution proposal Wednesday that is all but ready for approval. Officials want to finalize the planned resolution with the Washington State Department of Transportation before taking action at the committee and then the full council level.

Committee chair Andrew Lewis said a vote on the resolution could come later this month. Continue reading

Seattle mayor rolls out ‘Downtown is You’ activation plan

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell dodged protesters calling for the end of homeless encampment sweeps Wednesday morning as he rolled out his administration’s “activation” plan for downtown that calls for changes to zoning, more residential development, and near-term solutions like increased food, restaurant, and bar activity, expanded street uses, and more work to clean up and make the area safer.

The new “Downtown is You” campaign will include metrics and a “downtown activation plan” available to a public: Continue reading

‘Space Needle thinking’ — Seattle mayor’s next phase of downtown revitalization will crack down on drugs, activate streets and shuttered storefronts, and focus new development south of Pioneer Square

(Image: Downtown Seattle Association)

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has rolled out the next phase in efforts to revitalize the city’s downtown that could define his administration — and coin a new term.

The new efforts will also ripple up Pike and Pine where some of the initiatives will add new resources like more services to help address the city’s addiction crisis while also possibly displacing some of the street disorder problems of Seattle’s core more fully up the Hill.

Calling for innovative, “Space Needle thinking,” the Seattle mayor Monday laid out his plan to bring more people back into downtown and better address the problems of addiction, mental health, and street disorder that have accompanied a shift in daytime workers out of the city’s core.

“We are showing you our work in progress and acting now because downtown is too important to wait. These steps today will be followed by the kind of Space Needle Thinking and long-term transformational enhancements necessary to redefine what a downtown can be,” Harrell said in the announcement.

Monday’s announcement comes one year after a first push of “hot spot” policing and emphasis patrols were pushed forward by Harrell and Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz in operations centered around the 3rd Ave transit corridor.

Policing will be core in the next phase, too. Continue reading

Looking for ideas for what to do with Seattle’s unwanted office space? Check out Capitol Hill

A view from the Capitol Hill WeWork (Image: CHS)

There was a time in the mid 2010s when Capitol Hill’s leading real estate and development experts were making a big push to create more office space projects in the neighborhood to better balance what they said had been a flood of housing and nightlife investment in the area.

They could not have known, exactly, what was coming next but the last thing Seattle needs now are more desks.

The Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development has put out “a competitive Call for Ideas” for how the city could convert its increasingly unused downtown office space into housing.

“Share your vision for the future of a Seattle Downtown that is more balanced between residential uses and civic and office uses than today,” the city’s call for submissions reads. “We seek ideas to create vibrant neighborhoods where people live, work, shop, and play.”

The effort comes as Seattle grapples with how to bring more people into its downtown as COVID-19 “working from home” trends have continued. Continue reading

Seattle’s downtown improvement district up for renewal as it turns to unarmed security, more workers on ‘trikes, bikes and machines’

(Image: Seattle MID)

It won’t cross I-5 and include Capitol Hill — yet — but Seattle’s updated Metropolitan Improvement District that collects around $15.5 million a year from residential and commercial property owners to fund “daily cleaning of downtown streets and sidewalks, graffiti removal, security patrols, hospitality and concierge services, connecting unsheltered residents with services, parks programming, and more” is being planned for an expansion into Pioneer Square.

The Seattle City Council’s Economic Development Committee is considering the proposed 10-year renewal (PDF) and expansion of the district Wednesday morning.

The downtown program’s crews are known for their yellow safety jackets and are often the most visible city presence on downtown’s streets and sidewalks. Program officials say its spending has changed to emphasize more use of unarmed security and “increased use of trikes, bikes and machines” to get the job done downtown. It also spent more to recruit and pay the program’s “ambassadors.”

On Capitol Hill, the Broadway Business Improvement Area serves a similar purpose but at a smaller scale. In 2019, CHS reported on the failed effort to expand the Capitol Hill district that also took down the neighborhood’s chamber of commerce.

 

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What will one-way Pike and Pine and their new bike lanes look like? A new Capitol Hill connection with downtown Seattle

(Image: CHS)

Over the next 18 months, the city will install new bike lane protections and rework Pike and Pine in downtown and on Capitol Hill below Bellevue into one-way streets. The result could be an even more solid connection between the neighborhoods and a better experience for traveling over the gulf of I-5.

Downtown, work has already begun. There has been a brouhaha over the cherry trees near Pike Place Market and there are architectural renderings of those waterfront plans, but when it comes to what Pike and Pine will look like east of 5th Ave, the best the city can offer is a presentation made to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board in October 2021.

Still, the changes are coming. The project from the City of Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects in coordination with the Downtown Seattle Association and the Seattle Department of Transportation will “improve east-west connections between the waterfront and surrounding neighborhoods.”

Downtown, ground was broken last month. There is no schedule for the work to complete the $17.45 million Pike and Pine transformation across I-5 but here is what the plan entails. Continue reading