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With reporting by Nova Berger/CHS Intern
As the Seattle Parks Department and community and business groups work to make improvements and add new features to bring more activity to Cal Anderson and help address public safety issues around the busy Capitol Hill park, there is a big, wet opportunity right there and waiting this summer.
The Cal Anderson Park Alliance is working on early planning for reactivating — or replacing — the park’s wading pool that has sat dry for years thanks to a confluence of budget issues and needed repairs and construction.
The pool was officially drained and closed in 2020 as part of the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
CAPA is now leading efforts to explore the future of the wading pool. They are working with the city to evaluate options for the space that they hope will improve the park while also providing a needed resource when temperatures soar in the neighborhood.
CAPA is exploring several ideas to make the space more usable for the community, including revitalizing the wading pool or converting it into a spray park, Brie Gyncild from CAPA said, adding that both proposals aim to provide a valuable amenity for the neighborhood.
But don’t expect the pool to be filled this summer. The long city process to revive the park feature is just beginning.
(Image: Nova Berger/CHS)
The effort comes as business and community groups have called for a Pike/Pine safety plan to address the strong impacts of drug use, mental health issues, and homelessness in the area. Efforts to continue to revitalize Cal Anderson are one core of the plan.
The emptied pool is still a busy part of the park. Many living unhoused use the paved area as part of their living spaces and meal groups frequently set up there in the shaded area for food and grocery handoffs. Figuring out community needs like these will be part of the ongoing challenges of changing Cal Anderson.
The wading pool also has a history of prohibited activity, the city says, including
campfires burned at night, drinking and broken glass and hazardous materials.
A proposal has been submitted through a city community project funding program designed to gather community input and fund viable projects.
Gyncild said the CommUNITY Fund is currently reviewing the proposals for converting the wading pool into a splash pad or spray park.
Seattle Parks and Recreation is in the process of evaluating the proposals.
“We are actively discussing the feasibility of revitalizing the wading pool or creating a new spray park. We appreciate CAPA’s initiative and are committed to working with them to explore the best options for the space,” a parks spokesperson said.
The wading pool’s closure came as the city finalized work in 2017 to widen paths around the feature and make it ADA accessible as part of the project to convert the nearby park bathrooms to all gender setups.
While the process requires months of process, there is precedent in the city. Green Lake’s pool closed in 2015 but was able to be reopened in 2016.
Cal Anderson is already a water-focused space with its fountain and large reflecting pool. Mechanical issues are a constant problem for the park’s famous fountain. It has become a rite of Capitol Hill summer waiting for the Cal Anderson fountain to be turned back on after the latest repairs.
In 2021, the Seattle Parks Department took on a $35,000 overhaul of the Doug Hollis-designed fountain that included work to strengthen the structure and apply water repellent and anti-graffiti coatings.
The fountain is a celebration of what lies beneath Cal Anderson and the creation of the neighborhood’s central park — two 6.25 million-gallon vaults full of Seattle Public Utilities drinking water. There has been a reservoir at the site for more than 115 years. After the state mandated that Seattle’s open water sources needed to be covered in the early 1990s, Kay Rood and community groups helped lead an effort to cap the reservoir with a park.
But the features weren’t designed for people to jump in and the parks department doesn’t encourage people to play in the features — we also would recommend washing your hands thoroughly if you touch the summer muck that sometimes grows in the reflection pool.
Parks lovers looking to cool off do, however, have other nearby options on Capitol Hill including Volunteer Park’s wading pool and Miller Community Center’s spray park.
Miller’s spray park just off 19th Ave E
A spray park conversion might be a more likely future for Cal Anderson’s cooling feature. The city prefers the spray parks because they don’t require expensive and hard to staff lifeguard resources.
It also involves simpler maintenance with no standing water to monitor for safety and quality. Additionally, a splash pad could attract a broader age range making it a more appealing and feasible community project.
A spray park also wouldn’t require constant surveillance. However, that project would include extra hurdles, a Seattle Parks representative said.. “There would be a lot of modifications to make the pool at grade. The ledge and edge would need to be leveled to make it one continuous space.”
In addition, both a spray park and wading would continuously need to be cleaned by staff, the representative said “It sits out there with the leaves and gum. Someone has to clean it.”
While Cal Anderson’s water play area won’t be ready this summer, the park should be an active place as Seattle’s final weeks of summer play out. A new skate ramp has been added to the sports courts with support from Limback Lumber, Skatelite, Capitol Hill Block Party, and 35th North Skate Shop. Meanwhile, August 11th will bring the annual Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day to the park, the 15th year of the community event and part of a full CAPA calendar of happenings hoped to improve community use of the space.
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Seattle doesn’t give a shit about family in urban areas.
I would double down on this. No more tax breaks for children, who are really just expensive pets for entitled rich people and no more tax incentives for married couples. The state shouldn’t have a hand in encouraging people’s personal choices like marriage and children. Where’s the tax incentives for single people to get a 1 bedroom apartment for example? Make it make sense.
OMG! Who do you think is going to pay your bills when you age? It’s going to be the children that you despise right now.
This. Social Security and Medicare don’t work unless there’s enough kids to pay for them. If things go as they have been, there won’t be. Everybody start f**king and make more kids to pay for my old age!
“ children, who are really just expensive pets for entitled rich people”
Your comment is outrageous and hostile, and just plain inaccurate…lots of middle class and poor people have kids. Going forward, no one will read your ridiculous comments,including me., so don’t bother to make any.
LOL! Wow!
Someone loves their money AND themselves a lot.
A spray park would be amazing, especially for overheated doggos.
You realize that it would be a no dogs allowed area right… Yeah, probably, but entitled Seattle dog owners don’t care… I’m sure they’d take it right over just like the playfield they also aren’t allowed on…
Riiight…
This is Capitol Hill. We take our pets EVERYWHERE and they are gladly welcomed. Honestly? It’s a blast seeing so many dogs running around everywhere. I scratch a lot of random ears in my day.
Stop lying to yourself. Pets are NOT welcomed in places like inside of restaurants, grocery stores, sports fields, playgrounds but most people are too scared to say anything because there’s crazy hostile people out there….
Your sense of entitlement disgusts me.
Turn it into an off leash dog area please
ALL Capitol Hill parks look like hell.Dead trees, weed overgrowth on trails and sidewalks and then their “how are we doing survey” which I and partner have submitted to no avail. Lost cause when the employees drive by obvious neglect.
Ugh! Zero supervision .
I was in Volunteer Park yesterday morning and it was gorgeous. Then in the evening I walked through Cal Anderson to watch some of the extremely adorable “dancing till dusk” event happening by the tennis courts & people playing on the field. Clearly most the rest of CH’s residents are coping just fine with things.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The dead grass and dusty dirt waking path, with scattered graffiti, as featured in the attached picture really doesn’t seem like a welcoming and cared for community park that should be a prideful representation of our neighborhood. ..this CH resident is not ‘just fine’ with the state and condition many of our parks are kept in. They are an embarrassment.
I think you miss the point. We are trying to make it all better.
“Lost Cause” was the Civil War…I’d get over it.
Cal Anderson park is well loved and well used in the neighborhood, yet so poorly maintained by the city. Simple things like weeding and tending the planted areas and caring for the trees, not to mention upkeep for the grass amidst problematic drainage, all are not done. Why? Budget? Sure…this should be a gem of a park for our neighborhood. Better upkeep, even the cheaper maintenance issues, is sorely needed. Family friendly features like a wading pool shouldn’t take years of “study” to implement.
It can’t be only their budget. They spend $228mm in 2024, mostly on salaries. They must be prioritizing things other than maintenance and upkeep.
Cal Anderson Park is at the very bottom of the list for maintenance. Why? In 2020 Parks applied an equity lens to prioritize projects. It was determined that south Seattle parks should be the top priority for “equity”. Parks in the most wealthy areas seemed to also maintain their maintenance funding because of political clout. As a result, the bottom fell out of the middle. Cal Anderson serves a diverse area, but because it wasn’t historically under-served, it doesn’t get equity points. It is mostly renters around Cal Anderson and not as wealthy as north Capitol Hill, so it doesn’t have the same political clout as Volunteer. None of this makes any sense because Cal Anderson serves a high density community with little to no private outdoor space. It seems obvious that a heavily used park in an urban area should be a priority, but this is Seattle. Sigh.
I volunteer for the Parks and Rec. We went into Cal Anderson and Capitol Hill in general and weeded stuff on the north end and spread mulch. It looks nice. That was 3 months ago. It turned things around completely. There were hundreds of us.
Not sure I can ever imaging Cal Anderson as a place I would allow my children to walk around with no shoes on, let alone carousing in a wading pool. That space has a looooong way to go before most people would be comfortable having their kids interact with the space like that.
Cal Anderson is where my now 14yo first learned the valuable city kid lesson “look in the potty for needles before you sit down.”
Seattle kids learn street smarts I didn’t get growing up on an island
Truth.
Don’t hide it.
The city has removed so many of the wading pools. Can they leave an old fashion wading pool the way it was. I’m sure the new spray parks are more complicated to run not to mention build.
wading pools are harder to run…. the city can barely find qualified lifeguards to staff the few actual pools and beaches the city runs. As shallow as they are, wading pools are still a drowning hazard for little ones, OK, you might not need to do any rescue dives there… but you still need someone with some skills. Spray parks don’t need a paid minder.
The wading pools are more labor intensive after initial costs.
Greenlake works because they fund it. All the other wading pools are all Boomer era. Meaning once the population of kids thinned. So did public pools. The ones in existence are well funded. Greenlake has lifeguards. I used to be one. WSI USMC. Taking care of a pool was 1/2 my job.
What they won’t say is that most of the damage was caused after CHOP when you had junkies starting large fires down there every night.
The park looks like absolute crap compared to say 2018. It’s sad and the neighborhood has grown massively since then. You’d think the city would make cal anderson a pristine jewel for us on the Hill to enjoy, or at least keep it clear of tents, but they can’t even do that.
But where are all the drug zombies, dealers, and mutual aid enablers going to hang out if this area of the park is restored for use by CHILDREN?!?!
Volunteer parks and rec. great way to meet real humans too.
It would be cool for a baby pool for toddlers. Very small. Drain at night and refill. That’s what we did decades ago at Gilman park. It was a big ol’ pool though.