Author Archives: Hannah Saunders

Density, powerlines, and development: Here is why it still goes dark on North Capitol Hill

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(Image: CHS)

Day-long power outages from June-uary winds and rain that hit over 7,000 Seattle City Light customers in northern Capitol Hill earlier this month didn’t have enough of an impact for the city to consider installing underground power lines. The location of Capitol Hill power outages follows a pattern: in areas where multifamily housing development is less prevalent, power lines sit above ground and are left vulnerable to high winds and storms.

“The recent, sustained high wind event caused many outages throughout our service area including Capitol Hill,” Jenn Strang, media relations manager of SCL, told CHS.

Power outages are frequently caused by fallen trees, wind and ice. Strang said some instances are easier to fix than others, like the outage at 15th St and E Olive St.

“In the case of Monday’s outage at 15th Street East and East Olive, multiple wire spans and crossarms needed to be replaced and repaired which required different crews to complete the tasks,” Strang said.

Installing power lines underground to lessen the risk of outages in the area isn’t an option without larger scale housing development.

For one, it’s expensive — and the city wants developers to pay for it.

Nicholas Rich, client executive at IMEG—a national engineering and design consulting company— said many owners of newly built apartments want City Light to bury overhead power lines underground.

“If you put those underground you really improve the reliability in that respect locally,” Rich told CHS. “Usually a new developer won’t want to do that because City Light is perfectly happy keeping those overhead lines just the way they are.” Continue reading →

SDOT explains why so much of the new RapidRide G line is paint, not concrete

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(Image: SDOT)

After a decade of planning including three years of construction, it is only in recent weeks that many elements of the $135 million RapidRide G bus rapid transit project connecting downtown, First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Madison Valley are finally visible.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is finally laying down the paint.

To cut on costs and save money while also making massive infrastructure and water main upgrades along the route of the soon-to-be completed project, the city is using painted features rather than concrete along the coming soon bus line.

“Many features along this route, such as curb bulbs, are being executed with paint instead of solid, concrete-poured structures primarily due to cost considerations,” an SDOT spokesperson said. “Utilizing paint allows us to implement traffic calming and pedestrian safety measures more affordably, while still achieving the desired improvements.”

The department says not all of the coming RapidRide G paint is a cost saving measure. Some of the paint was in the plans from the beginning like markings to help ensure drivers don’t park near crosswalks. Continue reading →

Veteran journalist who covered Capitol Hill Occupied Protest new owner at Seattle Gay News

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(Image: Renee Raketty)

Raketty, center, appeared on a Trans Journalists Association panel at the Society of Professional Journalists regional conference in Seattle earlier this year (Image: Renee Raketty)

Seattle Gay News, one of the oldest queer news publications in the nation, is celebrating its 50th year of bringing LGBTQ+-news to the Pacific Northwest.

While the passing of longtime editor George Bakan in 2020 led to years of change, writer, leader in the trans journalism community, and current editor of SGN Renee Raketty has officially taken ownership.

“There is no doubt that this paper has been a lifeline to the LGBTQIA+ community in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been told we are the nation’s third-oldest LGBTQIA+ newspaper. I’ve dedicated nearly a decade of my life to SGN, but I’m just one of many people who have contributed to the paper over the last 50 years,” Raketty told CHS. “It is truly an honor that Mike has chosen me to lead the paper into the next 50 years.”

Prior to his death, publishers and Capitol Hill character Bakan created arrangements for his family to take over as owner and publisher but SGN was sold last fall to Stratus Group to add to its LGBTQ+ newsmagazine business with publications including Coastal Pride of Ocean Shores, Washington and outlets in Bellingham and Spokane.

But changes in life plans has put the SGN on the move again. Stratus owner Mike Schultz and his husband are moving to California to be closer to family. After being associated with the paper on and off for a decade and a tour of duty as managing editor under the Stratus ownership, Raketty has the opportunity to lead the Seattle queer newspaper into a new era under her ownership.

It comes after Raketty has built a distinguished career in journalism that included work covering the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the police clashes around CHOP that took place on her home Seattle turf. Continue reading →

City says listening to safer streets advocates as it faces crashes and near misses in overhauled Pike/Pine connection between downtown and Capitol Hill

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The results of a recent crash at Melrose and Pike from @streetcrafting

(Image: Office of the Watefront)

The city’s Pike Pine Streetscape and Bicycle Improvements project is meant to boost bicycling and pedestrian activity and create connectivity between downtown and Capitol Hill as the routes along the arteries are transitioned to one-way traffic in a $17.45 million effort.

But the design compromises and half-baked safety measures around partially completed changes are making the area dangerous for walkers, bikers, and drivers alike, community groups say, and raising some core questions around how Seattle City Hall handles transition into daily use for its new major projects and how it treats pedestrians and bicyclists in that process.

“For the short term issues, an ongoing problem since construction began over a year ago has been the lack of intuitive, comfortable detours for people biking, especially people going east up the hill on Pike,” David Seater of Central Seattle Greenways tells CHS. “At the start of construction, SDOT was recommending that people detour all the way to Belltown to avoid a few blocks of construction along Pike.”

Central Seattle Greenways, a community group focused on improving city streets for all users, told CHS that city leaders have largely been dodging their requests to address safety concerns that are a result of ongoing construction at Pike and Pine streets from 2nd Ave to Bellevue Ave with a core of challenges around the transitions near Melrose. Continue reading →

No joke, Capitol Hill now has a Broadway Food Court

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(Image: Comedy/Bar)

(Image: Noches En Oaxaca)

Don’t laugh. A Broadway comedy bar by night is hoping to help neighborhood food and drink startups grow in a Capitol Hill “food court” by day.

Comedy/Bar is hoping to use its venue as a stage to give a boost to a collection of Capitol Hill mobile and delivery ventures while also stretching its own food and drink menu into daylight hours.

“As a small business owner, I understand how difficult it could be for places that operate primarily in the evening and night to try to maximize their product and to try to make more money, because they’re paying rent 24 hours per day,” owner Dane Hesseldahl says. “We had this idea. We have all of this space. We have this large kitchen and we have this great bar—and it sits empty all day.”

So, the Broadway Food Court has been born, putting the Broadway comedy club just a block from Capitol Hill Station into the area’s daytime and lunchtime mix. Continue reading →

Save Kerry Hall? Students stage sit-in, call for arts, music, and dance to be preserved as buyers eye historic property for housing and development

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Monday, Cornish College of the Arts students gathered along E Roy on Capitol Hill for a sit-in at Kerry Hall. Their hope is to save the historic building — and keep the 103-year-old studio and performance hall as a center for arts and learning on Capitol Hill.

There is also a Save Kerry Hall group formed with hopes of asking Cornish to reconsider the decision — or help shape the old building’s future by finding a buyer dedicated to continuing its role in the city’s arts scene.

“Most of us feel that the Cornish school should not be sold and it could be part of a vision of Cornish in other ways on Capitol Hill, so [there’s] this sort of long standing threat and feeling of insecurity for many of us as far as the future of Kerry Hall,” Elizabeth Jane Darrow, a former Cornish faculty member who has been helping organize efforts to save the building, tells CHS.

CHS reported here as Kerry Hall hit the Capitol Hill real estate market in April. At the time of Cornish’s announcement that it was finally preparing to sever its final ties to its birth neighborhood and fully move its campus to South Lake Union, the arts school did not include a price for the E Roy property and three-story building just off Broadway within the Harvard-Belmont Landmark District. Its broker is now awaiting offers.

Cornish students staged the sit-in at Kerry Hall on Monday to raise awareness about the pending sale. The sit-in plan included improvisational dances by Cornish graduate Sylvia Schatz-Allison and an opportunity for students past and present to write goodbye letters to the building.

“The decision to divest from Kerry Hall is a strategic one, so that we can focus on our energies on teaching and learning,” James Falzone, academic dean and professor of music at Cornish told CHS about the planned sale. Continue reading →

The ‘Squire Park exception’? Central District neighborhood at center of Seattle’s debate over creating more multifamily and affordable housing in more parts of the city

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Saturday’s meeting was the first Squire Park Community Council’s first since the pandemic began (Image: CHS)

As Seattle urbanists dissect the 20-year growth plan being championed by Mayor Bruce Harrell and are identifying where in the city his administration excised more ambitious development and density goals, the “Squire Park exception” has emerged.

How did the residential blocks between 12th Ave and the Central District’s Cherry Hill end up a protected swath of single family housing-dominated growth goals in the mayor’s proposed plan?

As effective as the group may be, don’t look directly at the Squire Park Community Council.

It had not met in five years thanks to COVID-19 and the pandemic  — until Saturday. But the issues raised in the group’s first meeting by attendees and during a session with District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth fit very much with a slower approach to Seattle growth.

“The pandemic had a really devastating impact, I think, on many community councils, and particularly in Squire Park,” William Zosel, board member, told CHS. “One of the things that happened during the several years of absence is that two members died.” Continue reading →

RapidRide G will do a lot of things — but it won’t have the 14th and Madison crossing bell

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It is a tiny thing in the scheme of things of 2.4 miles of new bus stops, transit priority, new crosswalks, and better sidewalks. Enjoy it while you can. Unlike other crosswalks in Seattle, 14th and Madison has a vintage bell that rings when it is time to cross the street, but as the city works to finish the RapidRide G project and increase pedestrian safety through initiatives like creating lead time intervals for pedestrians and full-way crosswalks, the old bell — maybe the last of its kind on Capitol Hill — won’t remain for much longer.

“We will be replacing old equipment and modernizing the traffic signal to meet federal standards for ADA accessible crossings,” Ethan Bergerson, press secretary for SDOT, told CHS.

Once installed, the new crosswalk button will trigger an electronic voice message when it is safe to cross the street. The button will also vibrate for individuals who cannot hear the spoken message or see the walk symbol. The intersection will continue to have automatically displayed head-start walk signals.

“The new signal will also prioritize buses to help RapidRide G and other bus routes move through the intersection efficiently and reliably,” Bergerson said. Continue reading →

There still isn’t a crosswalk at Harvard and E Olive Way

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A photo Matt Baume sent to city officials showing yet another crash at Harvard and Olive

Even with a new representative on the city council more dedicated to public safety, transparency, and access, “One Seattle” slogans from City Hall, and leaders paying lip service to the importance of pedestrian and bike rider safety as they shape the city’s next billion dollar transportation levy, it still takes a hell of a lot of work and a few squeaky wheels for the Seattle Department of Transportation to add a needed crosswalk at a dangerous intersection on Capitol Hill.

Matt Baume, a neighborhood writer, has been documenting the crashes at E Olive Way and Harvard Ave E for about ten years, all the while trying to get safety improvements put in place. With new leadership in the district, Baume wrote to D3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth in January to share his concerns after yet another crash, this time involving three cars and several passengers including a family with a small child. Continue reading →

The Punk Rock Flea Market is coming back to Capitol Hill — Here’s when it will open and how long it might stay

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(Image: Punk Rock Flea Market)

What began in an abandoned basement bar beneath the Low Income Housing Institute headquarters in Belltown led to the birth of the Punk Rock Flea Market. This June, PRFM will hold its first weekend sale in the former QFC on 15th Ave E that has been shuttered since 2021 to activate that space until the building is demolished to make way for new housing and new businesses.

“We’re ‘punk rock’ because we’re collaborative and very DIY, not because we adhere to any particular fashion or music choices. We’re open and friendly and weird, and everyone is welcome to buy and sell with us,” Joshua Okrent, PRFM founder, tells CHS.

While the public process and financing pathway for redevelopment can be lengthy and bumpy, the property’s developer Hunters Capital has been searching for short-term tenants to try to keep the block active until the six-story, 170-unit, mixed-use development with about 10,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space can dig in.

“The Punk Rock Flea Market will be here through the end of the year and will continue on a month-to-month basis next year,” Jill Cronauer, chief operating officer of Hunters Capital, told CHS.

The agreement means there will be time for multiple PRFM event over the coming months. The first is planned for June 22nd and 23rd the weekend before the big 2024 Pride festivities. Continue reading →