With Madison RapidRide G work wrapping up this year, Eastlake RapidRide J ready to dig in

Sen. Patty Murray delivered the big check to Seattle (Image: City of Seattle)

Eastlake will be the next area neighborhood to get the RapidRide treatment. This week, Seattle officials are celebrating a $64.2 million grant to help pay for it.

The RapidRide J route will connect the University District to Southlake Union via the core of the Eastlake neighborhood in a construction project expected to begin this summer and be completed sometime in 2027.

“Americans depend on fast, affordable, and safe transportation options to get to work, pursue their education, and come home every day to their families” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said about the grant. “Bus rapid transit is the fastest-growing transit mode for a good reason, and the Biden-Harris administration’s $64.2 million investment will build out Seattle’s RapidRide J Line to provide faster, more efficient service that benefits the greater Seattle area.”

The full project including two new miles of bus priority lanes and 3.7 miles of “protected bike facilities” has a $128 million cost estimate. Continue reading

Seattle Fire’s quick response knocks down blaze on Eastlake block home to Pazzo’s and the Zoo

A block of Eastlake’s neighborhood core home to the Zoo Tavern and Pazzo’s won’t be quieted long after an overnight fire early Saturday morning.

Seattle Fire responded around 1:30 AM Saturday to the reported fire in the 1927-era building home to Pazzo’s and a set of upstair twin apartments andy quickly brought the blaze under control.

“The building was built in the early 1900s and its structure is of old growth fir, so if the fire department did not act so quickly as they did the building would have been engulfed in its entirety,” Pazzo’s owner Dave Mendoza Herrarte tells CHS about the incident. Continue reading

RapidRide on Broadway: How would you prioritize these 18 Capitol HIll and Central District street and transportation projects for the next 20 years?

 

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The Seattle Department of Transportation is collecting public feedback on a roster of dozens of street, sidewalk, and mobility projects around the city as planners try to round out the city’s next 20-year transportation plan.

Included in the mix are 18 projects on and around Capitol Hill and the Central District including a few in vital connecting neighborhoods like downtown Seattle.

CHS reported here on the August publication of the draft Seattle Transportation Plan including a framework that would create more safe and efficient protected areas for bikers along arteries, a proliferation of transit-only lanes, and new light rail lines criss-crossing Capitol Hill and the Central District along 23rd Ave and Denny Way.

Now SDOT has further fleshed-out some of the concepts in the proposed plan as it seeks more feedback. The priorities will also likely shape the city’s next transportation levy as the current levy expires next year. You have until November 20th to add your priorities and thoughts.

“After a multi-year community visioning and planning process, we have identified a list of candidate transportation projects and potential program activities for the public to review and provide feedback,” SDOT writes. “These proposed projects and programs support the STP’s 20-year vision for Seattle’s transportation network.”

SDOT says the projects were shaped by the city’s growth strategies and equity priorities.

The Central Seattle roster covers Capitol Hill, the Central District, and nearby neighborhoods like Montlake, Madison Valley, and First Hill. Continue reading

Street Critic: Eastlake’s Mid-Century Masterworks

The Eastlake neighborhood is only five blocks west of Volunteer Park but its even closer proximity to Lake Union makes it a neighborhood quite different than Capitol Hill. Highlighting this difference are buildings representative of Eastlake’s commercial and maritime heritage which range from small, jewel-box like office buildings to large industrial structures.

Eastlake engages Lake Union in a variety of ways including seven ‘streetend parks’, such as Lynn Street Park. The streetends give one a chance to launch a Kayak, play catch with your dog, or simply to watch boats and seaplanes skim the lake’s surface. Some folks are so captivated by such water-borne activities that they have decided to live on the water, making Eastlake’s houseboat community the largest in Seattle.

Continue reading

Capitol Hill Historical Society | The mind boggling array of stairs and corridors connecting history at TOPS K-8

1905 Seward building in red, 1895 in b&w on the right (Paul Dorpat photo colorized by 7 year old)

Part 1: Jennie Lombard, Eastlake’s first principal
Part 2: 

TOPS is a K-8 school with an extensive history dating to the Klondike Gold Rush era. I recently met with a group of 1st to 3rd graders to share what I knew about Jennie Lombard, the very first principal of the first school at TOPS, and other details from the school’s history.

After we made collages, I took them on a tour of the many different parts of Eastlake’s K-8 school.

The oldest piece of TOPS opened in 1895 as the Denny-Fuhrman School and is on the state historic register. It was later expanded and moved, then moved again, then went through a few changes in use and is now the cafeteria. Continue reading

Capitol Hill Historical Society | Jennie Lombard, Eastlake’s first principal

I recently had the opportunity to lead a learning activity at TOPS K-8. The school is located at Boylston and Roanoke — some would call that Eastlake, others might say it’s on the side of Capitol Hill. Originally opened as Denny-Fuhrman School, it was renamed to Seward in the early 1900s and is today called The Option Program at Seward and is better known as TOPS K-8. I named the session “Old School TOPS.” A handful of 1st to 3rd graders joined me to learn about the school’s history, make art projects with old photos, and explore the different sections of the school.

To serve or to marry

At the beginning of the event, I shared information with the students about the first school’s first principal, Jennie Lombard. Continue reading

Capitol Hill homeowners mount last-ditch effort against MHA upzoning… in Eastlake

The view from Harvard Ave E (Image: CHS)

They know they are probably too late. They know that after a multi-year journey of hearings, community meetings, public comment, and legal challenges, the Seattle City Council wants the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) legislation, which connects affordability mandates to upzoning parts of the city’s densest neighborhoods, to reach its destination during a final vote Monday afternoon. Perhaps they even know Monday’s vote is basically pro forma, as council members have worked on it for years and voted unanimously to advance the legislation last month.

And, yet, a group of North Capitol Hill homeowners, along with the Eastlake Community Council, is trying to fight the upzoning of a seven-block-long (and mostly half a block-deep) sliver of I-5-bordering properties in Eastlake. The amendment for zoning increase, from low-rise to mid-rise with a height limit of 80’ on Boylston Ave. E and a short stretch of Franklin Ave. E was recently introduced and approved by the city council as part of a series of amendments that scaled back upzones across neighborhoods and increased some others. Continue reading

Police say no signs of foul play after body found in Colonnade Park

Police say there were no signs of foul play after a body was found in the Colonnade Park beneath I-5 on the slope between Capitol Hill and Eastlake Wednesday morning.

According to the Seattle Police Department, a death investigation was conducted after the body was found next to the park’s off-leash dog area but there was no immediate evidence of a crime.

The King County Medical Examiner’s office will investigate the cause of death and identification of the person found.

The area is well known for campers and drug use and police are often called to the park.

Last week, Seattle’s new homeless Navigation Team begins a clean-up effort with a sweep of I-5 camps below Capitol Hill and around the area of the park.

Mayor Ed Murray announced during his State of the City speech earlier this week a proposal for a new $55 million levy to help the city pay for its homelessness services. The city’s emergency operations center has also been opened to help direct resources needed to remove camps and assist homeless people with finding shelter.

King County officials and task force members, meanwhile, are working with the community to identify potential locations — one in Seattle, and one outside the city — for new safe consumption sites to stem the tide of overdoses that would give drug users a place to use that is supervised and can provide resources like clean needles.

Seattle homeless Navigation Team begins clean-up with sweep of I-5 camps below Capitol Hill

(Image: CHS)

(Image: CHS)

There have been clean-ups of the area beneath Interstate 5 between Capitol Hill and Eastlake before. But officials hope this week’s sweeps can be part of a longer term change of what an East Precinct officer once described as a “no man’s land populated by the homeless, mental cases.”

In the first official deployment of the city’s new Navigation Team including outreach workers and police, the areas along and under I-5 popular with campers in the city’s core are being cleared out.

Here is what KOMO saw during the start of the clean-up in a half-mile stretch near the Colonnade Park between lower Capitol Hill and Eastlake:

Police and safety vest clad workers started pulling apart a bunker underneath I-5 early Tuesday. Mixed in with the bottles filled with urine were piles of blankets, rats and a smattering of personal belongings. Continue reading

Two assisted living developments — 24 stories on First Hill, 6 in Eastlake — face design review

screen-shot-2017-02-07-at-7-12-47-pmTwo new assisted living projects planned for Capitol Hill’s neighboring neighborhoods will go in front of the design review board Wednesday night.

Both are part of a development trend addressing the market demand for more senior housing in Seattle. CHS previously wrote about how senior citizens, many of whom have lived in the area for a long time, are choosing to stay around Capitol Hill and Central Seattle, either in their homes, or in some of the new and established facilities which cater to older folks. The U.S. Census estimates that 21% of residents in the 98112 ZIP code are 60 or older.

Last spring, CHS wrote about one of the projects — a new neighbor planned for the Frye Art Museum weighing it at 23 stories on Terry Ave and developed by Columbia Pacific Advisors on property owned by the Archdiocese of Seattle. The other is a development just underway in Eastlake from Aegis Living. The company opened a seven-story, 104-unit facility complete with a “Memory Care Deck” designed to help residents feel at home with a “façade of an old-fashioned neighborhood” at 22nd and E Madison in 2014.

Design review: 1920 Eastlake Ave E

Design review: 620 Terry Ave