Mayor Bruce Harrell was at the Capitol Hill Farmers Market Sunday as part of a tour of the neighborhood (Image: CHS)
City officials and the Capitol Hill community advocacy group behind the initiative are backing off a report that any plans for a so-called Capitol Hill Superblock pedestrianization plan for Pike/Pine are moving forward.
Mayor Bruce Harrell was dispatched to the neighborhood Sunday for meetings with local businesses to hear from some of the bars, restaurants, and stores that would be impacted by the plans. Harrell’s office said the visit was part of the mayor’s new “One Seattle Community Connections” efforts with stops in more neighborhoods to come.
Erin Fried, deputy director of the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict advocacy group that organized a late October tour with new Seattle Department of Transportation director Greg Spotts to discuss the Superblock concept which would transform the core streets of the Pike/Pine nightlife and retail district around venues like Neumos and stores like Elliott Bay Book Company into a car-free, parking-free walking zone, says a report from development and safe streets advocacy and media outlet The Urbanist detailing plans for the Superblock has set off conversations — but little else, at this point.
Fried said talks about pedestrianization in the Pike/Pine core are “a need being surfaced over and over again” but said her organization and backer affordable housing developer Community Roots Housing “need to connect with small businesses” to make the initiative happen. The EcoDistrict “doesn’t use the term superblock,” Fried said.
Nagle is for parking (Image: CHS)
The EcoDistrict’s Fried is a board member at The Urbanist.
“The pandemic interrupted plans to advance the Capitol Hill superblock sooner, but it appears a window of opportunity is opening up now,” Urbanist editor Doug Trumm wrote about the project.
According to people familiar with the situation, the EcoDistrict tour with Spotts and the Urbanist report on the project brought swift complaints from Pike/Pine businesses concerned about street access and parking in the busy area just south of Cal Anderson Park.
By last week, any efforts around the initiative were being backpedaled.
An SDOT spokesperson tells CHS the “neighborhood walk” was “a part of Director Spott’s ongoing listening tour responding to invitations to experience and discuss the streetscape.”
“Greg is interested in learning about innovative urban planning concepts and enjoyed the discussion,” the spokesperson said. “SDOT doesn’t have a position on this concept, but is eager to continue talking to Capitol Hill community members and businesses to learn more about their perspectives and ideas to support the vibrancy of this neighborhood.”
Ideas for making Pike/Pine’s nightlife and entertainment core friendlier for pedestrians have come and gone — typically in a cloud of local business opposition.
A focus area for pedestrianization in early Capitol Hill Superblock planning three years ago
In the mid 2010s, the city experimented with closing E Pike to motor vehicles on a series of summer Saturday nights. CHS reported here in 2019 on the first early pushes boosted by Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda for a broader approach echoing with the Superilles of Barcelona. When Mosqueda opted to keep her council seat and not jump into a race for the mayor’s office, it seemed like the initiative might grind to a halt.
But the concept lived on and became one of the initiatives on the table for the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict as Donna Moodie, a longtime Seattle restaurateur and owner of 14th and Union’s Marjorie, was named executive director of the group.
Sunday, while they had the mayor’s ear, some business owners were expected to speak out against the pedestrianization plan if there aren’t better efforts to include nightlife and retail communities.
Mosqueda, meanwhile, serves at the council’s budget chair and currently has her hands full trying to finalize the city’s 2023 spending plan amid the latest predicted downturn in tax revenue.
UPDATE: We’ve asked her office for more about the councilmember’s take on the revived superblock efforts and the tour she attended and will update if we hear back. UPDATE x2: The Capitol Hill Superblock is not dead. We’ll have more from Mosqueda’s office soon on what the next steps will look like on what would be a long legislative road to kicking a real plan into gear. It’s a framework that could be applied across the city — not just on Capitol Hill — but the Pike/Pine opportunity will remain a focus for possible implementation, CHS is told.
SDOT seems most geared up to take on smaller projects in the neighborhood’s core like the transition of Pike and Pine intersections without traffic lights to full 4-way stops between I-5 and 15th Ave. A much larger undertaking will start construction in early 2023 below the core upper area to add new bike lanes, and wider sidewalks along Pike and Pine and transform both streets into a one-way couplet between the waterfront and Bellevue Ave.
While a broad transformation of core blocks of Pike/Pine near Cal Anderson is off the table, there is one street seemingly everyone agrees needs change.
Nagle Place has emerged as a better possible target for an overhaul. Four years ago, there was hope new development replacing the old Bonney Watson mortuary would help enliven Nagle along with the new energy from nearby development above Capitol Hill Station. But Nagle uses these days are limited mostly to street parking — and street disorder. The underutilized area has also been a recent encampment sweep target.
But Nagle, it seems, just can’t catch a break. The mayor’s tour had been planned to include a stop Sunday to learn more about Nagle’s potential but the time with the EcoDistrict’s Moodie was cut due to scheduling issues.
Harrell’s tour, meanwhile, ended up focused on issues well beyond any superblocks with the mayor hearing small business worries about costs, safety, services for mental illness, and gun violence. We’ll have more soon on the mayor’s Capitol Hill visit.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🖤
