Capitol Hill’s Hot Rat Summer — and its expressions of art, community, and trans rights — will never end

A look back at the year that was on Capitol Hill is a look ahead at what comes next. 20-year plans. A new mayor. A city struggling with the intractable challenges of gun violence, homelessness, and protest. Before the details are wiped away by what comes next, here is a look at the stories. The Capitol Hill renter who will now lead the city. The stories of those shot and killed. The big spaces looking for new corporate strategies. The small spaces looking for new dreams.

Thanks for reading CHS in 2025. We look forward to bringing you more Capitol Hill stories in 2026.

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2025’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES

• PIKE/PINE GUN VIOLENCE: Matters of life and death are larger than the calendar. A year of deadly Pike/Pine gun violence stretched back to October of 2024 when 25-year-old Breanna Simmons was gunned down on 11th Ave in a murder that has not been publicly solved. Looking back just a bit further, 23-year-old Kenji Spurgeon was shot and killed in July in a parking lot at 10th and Pine. Last New Year’s Eve, 29-year-old Jonny Adamow was shot and killed at Broadway and Pike. This fall, 26-year-old Robert Fleeks and 18-year-old Jaydon Jameson were murdered within two blocks of Broadway and Pike. The latest killings brought new calls for more to be done as District 3 rep Joy Hollingsworth released a five-point plan of “immediate actions” needed to address ongoing safety issues in the area.
• CAL ANDERSON PROTEST CRACKDOWN: It wasn’t clear Seattle made much progress from 2020 when it comes to how its police force deals with protest and the First Amendment. In May, Seattle Police made multiple arrests in a crackdown on protesters at a fundamentalist church group’s rally in Cal Anderson Park setting off new debate on SPD’s crowd control practices while also revealing weaknesses in the Harrell administration’s support for the city’s trans and queer communities. It is not clear promised investigation into the crackdown will ever reach useful conclusions but the circumstances clearly didn’t help Mayor Bruce Harrell keep his job.
• WILSON WINS: A Capitol Hill renter will be the next mayor of Seattle as Katie Wilson led a progressive resurgence in the November election and narrowly defeating the incumbent. Harrell was the city’s second African American mayor and its first Asian-American mayor. The last time an incumbent mayor was reelected in Seattle was in 2005. Wilson, a Capitol Hill resident and progressive organizer, socialist, and leader at the Transit Riders Union who campaigned on her leadership around minimum wage and renters rights campaigns across the region faced a strident attack from Harrell as the incumbent pushed back following a terrible showing in the primary, criticizing Wilson as a child of privilege without adequate experience for City Hall, and claiming his opponent was a leader in the defund the police movement. Wilson painted Harrell as out of touch and focused on her messages around affordability and underserved communities including leading the city with plans to create $1 billion in union-built affordable housing, build 4,000 units of shelter, and expand police alternatives like the Community Assisted Response & Engagement Department’s crisis responders while also fielding smaller initiatives like championing creation of more public restrooms in the city.
• BROADWAY CRISIS CARE CENTER: Months of opposition and pushback from area business and property owners made way for King County’s plans to open a new Crisis Care Center at Broadway and Union by 2027. CHS reported in October on the approval of the $56 million plan to acquire the property, overhaul the building, and hire an operator for what is planned to be the second in a network of five county facilities providing 24-7 walk-in and emergency care mental health clinics funded by a 2023 voter-approved levy.
• GROCERY STORE WORRIES: The uncertainty around the future of the grocery store in big cities like Seattle and densely populated neighborhoods like Capitol Hill grew more clouded in 2025 with the sudden summer shuttering of the Broadway Whole Foods coming at the center of debate over a new ban on leases that block new groceries and pharmacies. Meanwhile, the experience of shopping in grocery markets around Capitol Hill and the Central District continued to degrade.
• FOOD + DRINK SHUTDOWNS: With the closures of Plum, Mamnoon, Stateside, Knee High Stocking Co. and Cook Weaver, Capitol Hill lost a combined 70 years of neighborhood food and drink.
• GIANT EXITS: Capitol Hill’s collection of empty giant commercial spaces grew in 2025. In September, coffee giant Starbucks shuttered its $20+ million Capitol Hill Roastery. June brought the abrupt end of the one-of-a-kind, mixed-use Redhook microbrewery below the Pike Motorworks apartments. Summer’s Broadway Whole Foods shutdown at the center of neighborhood worries around the future of grocery stores belongs here, too.
• SAVAGE CITIZENS: A pro-cop, pro-business, anti-street disorder, anti-supportive housing community found a voice on Capitol Hill as Broadway crystal shop owner Rachael Savage entered the city’s political fray. Savage got trounced in her Republican run to displace Alexis Mercedes Rinck from her Seattle City Council seat but found bubbles of support for her positions including an initiative to ban homeless camping in Seattle. Whatever is next for Savage, it won’t include the Broadway boutique where the shopkeeper said challenges with crime, drug use, and homelessness spurred her decision for a political run. Savage ended 2025 announcing The Vajra was closing after 36 years of business on Broadway.
• PARKS PROBLEMS: “Bouts of negative park activity” brought chain-link fences to one Capitol Hill park and pushed the city’s parks department to come up with a community plan for addressing crime and disorder in three other Capitol Hill and Central District parks. In November, parks officials heard from neighbors and park goers on ideas for addressing the issues while keeping Seven Hill Park, Broadway Hill Park, and Tashkent Park open. Others spoke out in a different way, Meanwhile, the fight to keep Denny Blaine nude continued.
• CHOP ON TRIAL: After a string of settlements, Seattle’s response to CHOP went to trial as proceedings begin in the Antonio Mays Jr. wrongful death case. The deadly shooting — one of two killings of Black teens in the camp — came early on a Monday morning amid a night of drive-by shooting fears around the protest zone during 2020’s CHOP. Mays was shot inside a Jeep Cherokee that had been driven at high speeds through the streets and died as camp security and medic volunteers worked to save him while Seattle Police and Seattle Fire refused to enter the protest area.
• STREET AND TRANSIT CHANGES: Seattle’s $17.45 million overhaul of Pike and Pine connecting Capitol Hill to the waterfront was completed including transitioning portions of Pike and Pine to new one-way configurations. The paint-intensive $144 million RapidRide G overhaul of the Madison corridor faced its first major bureaucratic test as officials backed off a plan to erase a small section of the route’s red-paint bus lane. The seven-year 520 Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid construction project dug in the north of Capitol Hill.

ALSO IN 2025…

• In July, Capitol Hill Block Party dropped a day and went 21+ only
• In June, 70,000 marched for “No Kings” from Cal Anderson Park
• In December, D3 rep Joy Hollingsworth wrapped up the city council’s 2025 effort to forge a new 20-year growth plan for the city including new “Neighborhood Centers” and state-mandated “Middle Housing” laws expanding zoning hoped to allow a greater range of housing types in more parts of the city. In 2026, the debate will continue as the city knocks out the block by block particulars of neighborhood centers and transit corridors
• In November, Capitol Hill coffee shop Fuel started what could be a “new” food+drink trend in Seattle: tipping
• In February, pieces of the neighborhood’s past were revealed as demolition and construction began to make way for the new Broadway Center for Youth affordable housing and job training facility at Broadway and Pine
• In March, CHS broke the vital breakfast sandwich news that Eggslut was coming to Capitol Hill
• In February, a smash and grab burglary marked the start of another year of car-ramming break-ins targeting the Hill’s pot shops
• In December, a crash showed that not even the neighborhood’s self-serve kombucha taprooms are safe from car violence
• In October, Kaiser Permanente responded to calls from the neighborhood — and CHS reporting — to live up to community promises for keeping 15th Ave storefronts active
• In June, Capitol Hill died. Again. The Rhino Room nightclub became a couch store

CHS 2025 MOST COMMENTED

• 202 — After owner’s Republican run for city council, Capitol Hill crystal shop The Vajra to close — UPDATE
• 162 — Homicide: Victim shot in chest at Pike and Broadway— UPDATE: Second victim reported
• 149 — Next for Capitol Hill and Central District grocery shoppers: basket bans and receipt checks
• 142 — Broadway business owner enters Seattle mayor’s race as — gasp — a Republican
• 142 — ‘Bouts of negative park activity’ — City fences off Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills Park, planning changes in three more over

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