No reported injuries as midnight gunfire leaves houses, apartment building, and parked cars near Miller Community Center shot up

Multiple residences were hit and several vehicles were reported damaged after a bout of gunfire just after midnight around the Miller Community Center parking lot.

Police were called to the area near 20th and Republican around 12:20 AM Saturday after several 911 callers reported gunfire and calls started coming in from nearby residents reporting bullet damage to homes and apartment buildings in the area. Continue reading

With Seattle’s pickleball courts driving neighbors bananas, city will try new sound-reducing fence at Capitol Hill park

By Soumya Gupta, CHS Intern

Seattle Parks is responding to surging noise complaints from neighbors around the city’s most popular pickleball courts including Capitol Hill’s Miller Playfield with plans for a new noise-blocking fence. But the department is also scrambling to do more to try to cut down noise from the pandemic-era past time.

While rigorous pickleball matches are happening on courts across the city, the complaints have been centered on three specific Seattle Parks facilities.

“The noise complaints have been coming in for about a year now,” a Seattle Parks and Recreation representative said. “They’re exclusively from neighbors of Miller, Magnolia and Laurelhurst parks.”

To take a swing at the problem, Seattle Parks has devised a noise-reduction project to maintain the status of pickleball in courts, while also doing more to help make sure the game is played within a certain disciplinary framework. Continue reading

Chin up, this neighbor has added a new place to work out at their Capitol Hill corner

Lots of neighborhood mysteries pop up in the CHS Facebook GroupWhat were those sirens? Why is that business closed? When will that business open? — but a recent post had neighbors stumped.

What is this structure at the corner of 19th and John Thomas?

“At first I thought it was a pull-up bar and dip bars .. so I was like: ‘Oh sweet … the city is installing some sort of fitness trail around the neighborhood,'” the poster wrote. “But at second glance the pull-up bar is awfully high … So now I’m wondering if these are some sort of structures installed by the homeowner to grow plants around.” Continue reading

Rollover crash at 21st and John follows reported armed robbery in Volunteer Park — UPDATE

Sunday night’s crash scene via the CHS Facebook Group

Suspects in an armed robbery in Volunteer Park attempted to flee on foot after flipping a truck onto its roof as Seattle Police and a K9 unit gave chase Sunday night.

According to East Precinct radio updates and reports from witnesses, police were called to Volunteer Park just before 10 PM to reported shots fired and a victim injured from being punched or pistol whipped in the face in a hold-up inside the park’s water tower.

Minutes later, a responding officer reported spotting the the pick-up used as a getaway vehicle and began pursuit. The crash was then reported with the vehicle flipped near 21st and John after it collided with a moving vehicle in a collision that also damaged other cars parked on the street. Continue reading

A decade later, checking in on what comes next for a Capitol Hill development once at the center of the Seattle debate over microhousing

Thanks for the questions in the CHS Facebook Group about the changes at the property

An East Capitol Hill apartment development that became a centerpoint in Seattle’s early debates over microhousing has had an interesting decade and what comes next might say a little about the tiny apartment units and the industry that created them.

Neighbors around 17th Ave E and E Olive St. began asking questions about the twin apartment buildings last month as plywood went up and the property was fenced off.

A decade ago, neighbors and anti-growth advocates cited the 1720 E Olive St. congregate housing project as an example that the city wasn’t doing enough to limit microhousing — especially near areas of single family-style housing and complained that the buildings were poorly made and that the tiny living spaces would become undesirable to residents.

The 60 units across the two buildings at 17th and Olive average 138 square feet apiece, according to King County records. Continue reading

One to hospital in 23rd and Thomas shooting

One person was wounded in a shooting late Wednesday night near 23rd and Thomas.

Seattle Police was alerted by multiple 911 callers to gunfire reported in an alley in the area east of Miller Park around 11:15 PM. Arriving officers eventually located a trail of blood leading to a nearby apartment, according to East Precinct radio updates. Continue reading

Small power outage follows 18th Ave E garage fire — UPDATE

Thanks to CHS readers for the pictures and reports from the scene

Seattle Fire quickly knocked down a garage fire in the 300 block of 18th Ave E Sunday morning. There were also downed wires reported and a small power outage in the area.

Crews responded just after 7 AM to the detached garage and began efforts to protect surrounding houses and structures, SFD reports.

The fire was brought under control without further damage.

Downed wires in the area left around 30 customers without power as of 8 AM, Seattle City Light reports.

There were no reported injuries.

UPDATE 9/12/2022 9:30 AM: SFD reports that the cause of the fire remains under investigation. UPDATE x2: Investigators were not able to definitively identify a cause, classifying the fire’s source as “undetermined.” Damage was estimated at $115,000.

 

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Residents of Capitol Hill’s La Quinta fought to have their building saved — Now they’re getting a new La Quinta building behind the old one

(Image: Viva La Quinta/Jesse L. Young)

While residents at one historic Capitol Hill apartment building are calling for their building to be saved from market forces that will likely bring costly upgrades and higher rents, tenants at another “saved” landmark building are going to get new neighbors.

Early filings with the city this summer show plans for a new twin apartment building taking shape to join the landmark-protected La Quinta apartments at 17th and Denny.

According to the early paperwork, developer DEP Homes is preparing a plan to demolish a set of old houses that have served a range of capacities from duplex and up over the years to make way for a new apartment building on the land behind the Frederick Anhalt-designed La Quinta and its clay tile roof, its dozen two-story apartments, and its large central Mediterranean Revival courtyard. Continue reading

Miller Playfield closed for the summer for turf replacement project

The busy Miller Playfield and its popular basketball court will be fenced off through the summer as Seattle Parks undertakes an overhaul of the artificial turf.

Parks says the project at the field along 19th Ave E involves the replacement of 89,740 square feet of the plastic turf in a project expected to be completed by fall and the start of the year at Meany Middle School which is part of the Miller campus and utilizes the field.

Parks says pedestrian traffic through the Miller campus will be re-routed and the basketball court will be closed throughout the construction

A crew from Coast to Coast Turf will remove the old turf “and address any structural repairs to curbing, sub-subsurface, and drainage,” the parks announcement says. For the new turf setup, CHS reported here on the transition to more environmentally friendly solutions than the old crumb rubber previously used on the fields after a successful experiment at Cal Anderson. Continue reading

Police search for injured passenger after reportedly accidentally shoots self in leg aboard Metro bus

Police were searching for a passenger who reportedly accidently shot himself in the leg aboard a Metro Route 8 bus and fled the scene near 23rd and John Thursday afternoon.

Emergency crews and Seattle Police were called to the area just after 4 PM but the Seattle Fire units were quickly canceled as a search for the injured person continued. Continue reading