By Matt Dowell
Businesses and property owners have continued to call for more to be done to address street disorder and public safety concerns around Pike/Pine — especially as the area is prepared for the opening of a county Crisis Care Center in 2027. But an effort for owners to organize themselves to pay for safety and cleanup resources remains on the drawing board.
The push to form Pike/Pine property owners into a new Business Improvement Area will continue into 2026.
In February, CHS reported that the Seattle Office of Economic Development advocated for a new BIA which would add a special assessment for property owners along Pike and Pine. The fee could directly fund cleanup and safety initiatives within the BIA alongside other business district revitalization and management efforts. Similar organizations fund efforts along Broadway and on 15th Ave E.
Per BIA rules, a coalition of roughly 60% of the property owners within the proposed zone would need to sign on.
Along Pike and Pine, that hasn’t happened yet.
An OED spokesperson told CHS heading into another winter that the Pike/Pine BIA formation is “still in the exploration stage of formation, meaning that [supporters] are still working on determining the feasibility of forming and maintaining a BIA for the long term, what services it would provide, and how it would be managed.”
District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth backs the idea, saying her office is “still engaged in the process” and looks forward to keeping it going, calling it “very important”.
In November, her office successfully proposed adding $50,000 to fund organizing the Business Improvement Area to the 2026 budget.
On the business side, the GSBA chamber of commerce group is one of the stakeholders working with OED to organize the BIA. A spokesperson told us that there has been “some movement and progress” since February but concrete updates aren’t expected until 2026.
The city currently operates 11 BIAs, including two in Capitol Hill. The Broadway BIA was established in 1986 and covers Broadway businesses between Pike and Roy Street E. The 15th Avenue East BIA was established in 2021 and includes properties along 15th Avenue East north of East Denny Way and south of East Mercer Street.
The potential Pike/Pine BIA is one of six that the OED is currently working on throughout the city.
The OED spokesperson said the coalitions are effective for neighborhoods with dense business pockets for a number of reasons.
“BIAs address unique challenges. For example, some BIAs are focused on hiring cleaning crews, deploying safety ambassadors, launching targeted programs. When problems emerge, BIAs can often pivot quickly,” the spokesperson said. “Additionally, BIAs represent a sustained investment allowing for longer-term strategic planning for cleanliness, safety, public improvements, and activations that contribute to vibrant neighborhoods.”
The city says Capitol Hill’s existing BIAs “do regular cleanups, work on beautification efforts, and are also a direct point of contact for the neighborhood businesses with the City of Seattle.”
“The BIAs are able to collect and express neighborhood trends and needs more efficiently, leading to quicker action and faster results,” the city claims.
A BIA is established and managed by the owners of businesses and multifamily residential or mixed-use projects within a defined area. They decide how the special assessment rate is calculated and must have support from owners constituting at least 60% of that assessment. The city collects the fee from the property owners on behalf of the BIA and reimburses money spent directly on the area.
BIA mission statements often talk about safety, beautification, and unsheltered homeless outreach. But they can fund a variety of initiatives. The Tourism Improvement Area, for instance, collects fees from downtown hotels. The money funds marketing and other work to encourage tourism in Seattle.
Assessments are typically modest. In the 15th Ave East BIA, one of the city’s smallest covering around 40 properties, each property pays somewhere around $3,000 per year. Its assessment formula is “$0.10/$1,000 of the Total Appraised Value and $0.15 per lot square foot for the established base year as recorded from the King County Assessor’s Office and by the Financial Administration Services (FAS) from the City of Seattle”. The assessment yields an annual budget in the ballpark of $120,000.
In 2021, the 15th Ave East BIA planned to spend the majority of that money on cleanup and beautification, but also on business development and the 15th Ave Street Festival:
- 6 Days a Week Cleaning $47,319.80 (40.5%)
- Program Management & Neighborhood Advocacy $14,604.88 (12.5%)
- Neighborhood Beautification $14,604.88 (12.5%)
- 15th Ave Street Festival $14,020.68 (12%)
- Graffiti Removal $7,010.34 (6%)
- Insurance and Financial Management $3,975.52 (3.5%)
- Cash Balance/Reserve $15,000 (13%)
This week, that area is hosting a Capitol Hill Holiday Wine Walk to promote shopping in the area and celebrate the season.
Not all property owners support the idea of a Pike/Pine BIA. Detractors say that the extra tax pays for services that the city, which already taxes them, should provide.
An effort to create one huge BIA covering the entirety of Capitol Hill failed in 2018 when the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce backed down after a years-long fight to expand the Broadway BIA to include the neighborhoods around Summit/Bellevue, Olive and Denny, Pike/Pine, 12th Ave, 15th Ave, and 19th Ave. The expended energy and flagging membership contributed to the chamber’s shutdown months later. (The campaign did result in the 15th Ave East BIA).
With mayoral administration and city council changes coming in 2026, it remains to be seen where BIAs will fit in among the city’s public safety and homelessness initiatives. But the OED spokesperson doesn’t see a change in priority coming.
“Historically, every prior administration has been a strong supporter of neighborhoods and ensuring that they are clean, safe, vibrant, and welcoming. We don’t anticipate any changes in the work we do to support BIAs in their formation and collaboration across the city.”
Public safety and the commercial health of the Pike/Pine corridor, meanwhile, remain hot button issues. This fall, two deadly shootings took place within three weeks of each other near Broadway and Pike. This summer, many business leaders opposed the addition of the Broadway Crisis Care Center to the area, saying “Capitol Hill and First Hill have reached a saturation point regarding their capacity to manage the impacts associated with drug addiction and mental health crises.”
In November, the GSBA led a community safety social that highlighted a number of safety efforts, including the growth of the CARE Department, new policing tactics, and the department’s expanding Real-Time Crime Center which has deployed surveillance technology in the area.
GSBA representatives said they hope to hold the larger, in-person safety forums quarterly in 2026 while continuing the group’s regular monthly conference calls on Capitol Hill public safety issues.
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Anyone who wants to discuss why the previous BIA plan failed, and why this idea is never going to happen should give me a call.
I have the receipts.
Perhaps you could tell us here? Would be interested to learn.
Is it because it was primarily a residential property tax across the whole neighborhood that exempted townhouses and single family houses (those generally with the most financial resources within the area) putting the financial burden on apartment residents (renters and condo owners), while putting control of the decision making of the BIA in the hands of the largest property owners (Kaiser, Seattle Central College, and big landlord companies)?
Actually the property owners pays the tax, not the residential tenant. Yes, you can argue tenants pays it indirectly through their rent. But property owners need to balance rent increases based on what the market allows. There are only so many expenses you can pass along to tenants without encouraging them to find other accommodations, perhaps to a building not located within a BIA zone. These types of services should be provided by the city through general taxation via the general fund. If we want the services, everyone should pay for them.
What you just touched on here is a pretty good argument for why WA needs a statewide, fair, income tax. Of course we all know that will never fly in Eastern WA, because they see these issues as a Western WA problem. There’s no reason why highly-paid renters in high-rent apartments shouldn’t be paying a more-fair share of the tax burden. As you said, there’s only so much an apt bldg manager can pass on before the tenant bolts to a less expensive apt. And any tax increases on an apt bldg’s owner are attenuated somewhat by the size of the bldg, so those highly paid renters don’t feel the sting as much as a small homeowner does. They also don’t move every time they get a big raise, so their incomes could go up a lot but their state tax burden doesn’t. This is why many local employers poach tech workers from Calif, touting the attractiveness of no state income tax. Great for the worker, but not for the State. A lot of renters think anyone who owns a home must be rich. Not true. Yes, their homes might be worth a lot more than they paid for them, but a house isn’t an ATM. It doesn’t pay you a monthly dividend just because it’s worth more. It just costs you more when your property tax keeps going up. This is why so many people leave the state when they retire. Their incomes remain flat or go way down, but their property taxes keep going up and up, until they basically get taxed out of their house and have no choice but to sell their house and move. Meanwhile many renters vote “yes” on every proposed tax levy, sometimes 3x a year. They think it won’t impact them, because they don’t own a home. And to an extent it doesn’t, as much, because the larger the bldg is, the less they feel the sting the bldg owner can pass on. A small homeowner gets all of it. Eventually, Washington will have to address this, but when they do, it will be a hard sell, because everyone assumes it will only cost them more, but it won’t give them any local property tax relief. But it would.