(Image: Seattle Parks Foundation)

The Cal Anderson Park Shelterhouse (Image: The Olmsted Network)

With reporting by Hannah Saunders

After years of emptiness and unuse, the community space at the center of Cal Anderson Park is ready to be part of efforts to bring more activity — and positive energy — to this core of Capitol Hill.

The Cal Anderson Shelterhouse is available again for neighborhood meetings and events and the Cal Anderson Park Alliance wants you to know the 900-square-foot asset is there and waiting for you — and easy to use. The reopening is part of what is hoped to be a ripple of increased activity around the park and use of nearby community spaces.

“It’s important that the community starts to see real possibilities to own and utilize public spaces. Oftentimes I feel those spaces feel inaccessible and oftentimes are,” Aaron Carr, CAPA’s new activation manager said. “We start to see real opportunities for community to truly own space—that’s what I hope to see, that people truly feel like that’s our Shelterhouse and that it’s viewed as a community resource.”

CHS reported here on the renewed energy around doing more to help Cal Anderson in efforts to address public safety in the area by finding ways to bring not just more people to the park but also diversifying the activities and communities utilizing the space. Cal Anderson needs no help filing its fields and benches on a summer night but the hope is that better, more consistent activation and simple improvements like catenary lights over Nagle will help make the park safer and address concerns around street disorder and crimes in the neighborhood around the park.

CAPA’s new Activation Manager, Carr is coordinating community use and programming of the Shelterhouse and its plaza as well as Cal Anderson Park and the AIDS Memorial Plaza above Capitol Hill Station, working with community members, the CAPA Board, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Parks Foundation, and nearby property management like Hunters Capital to coordinate activities and the use of the park and community spaces.

(Images: CAPA)

(Images: CAPA)

(Images: CAPA)

The assets include the nearby Cathy Hillenbrand Community Room located in the Station House affordable housing building above Capitol Hill Station just north of the park. The program will also help keep the AIDS Memorial Plaza above the station busy with activities beyond its role hosting the weekly farmers markets. Seattle’s Urban League has announced it is making its next REVIVAL pop-up market and party in the plaza above Capitol Hill Station a Hilloween event.

Funding to keep the activation pilot going is a near-term issue. Support from the city and parks foundation will need to be renewed in 2025 even as the effort is planning the additions of umbrellas, tables, and chairs to the Shelterhouse plaza next summer.

The Shelterhouse was rebuilt in 2003 as Cal Anderson Park took shape on the lidded Lincoln Reservoir below. It makes for a limited meeting space with capacity around 45 but can make an excellent center of activity when combined with its adjoining plaza. After homelessness activists occupied the Cal Anderson Shelterhouse and were eventually swept out in late summer 2020, some called on the city to provide space for mutual aid and more around the facility. Some of that energy is finally being realized.

The secret to boosting community? For CAPA and the Shelterhouse, is might be cutting red tape.

CAPA’s Brie Gyncild said this new effort overcomes a major challenge as the Shelterhouse had been managed like other Seattle Parks properties requiring people to sometimes be required to purchase insurance coverage, paying deposits, and paying for park staff to be on hand.

“It was very complicated and challenging for folks to use, and then during the pandemic it got shut-down completely, and it was not available for use at all for a few years,” Gyncild said. “Our vision is for it to be the community space it was always meant to be.”

CAPA worked with the City of Seattle to take over management of the Shelterhouse space and is working with the Seattle Parks Foundation to maintain insurance coverage for those who use the space. CAPA is also able to waive fees.

“If you are not charging people to participate, then the space is free, so you just need to reserve it and we have a user agreement that says these are the rules,” Gyncild said. “We are seeing a wider variety [of events] than I had personally seen in the Shelterhouse in previous years. There’s a challenge on Capitol Hill, and probably throughout the city, in finding—needing space—where it’s really accessible to everyone. Here, you don’t have to have an in or know somebody.”

But there will be challenges. Last December, the city cleared the Black Lives Memorial Garden installed by protesters during the 2020 demonstrations. Seattle Parks said the garden near the Shelterhouse needed to be removed for a planned “turf restoration” project in Cal Anderson’s southern grass bowl area that officials said is needed “to host gatherings and large events” as part of its “intentional design as a natural amphitheater and proximity to electrical and water hook-ups.” While the space was returned to what the parks department said was its intended use, the removal of the garden was a reminder that, in the end, this is Seattle Parks property.

Carr hopes community groups and collectives already active around Capitol Hill can put the Shelterhouse to new use.

“There’s a community member who’s going to be giving away food, or having a community meal, on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Kwanzaa. They’ve already booked the space for those holidays,” Carr said. “Next month, I think three different groups are trying to have clothing swaps at the Shelterhouse.”

Those interested in reserving spaces at the plaza or Shelterhouse for events can contact CAPA. Follow @GoodVibesCalAnderson for up-to-date information on events.

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