Seattle Fire investigators were trying to determine how a fire started Tuesday night on an upper floor of a new Capitol Hill apartment building.
SFD responded to the blaze just after 5 PM Tuesday in the 600 E Howell Clay Apartments that rose on the site of the former Redwood bar but reported that the seven-story building’s automatic safety systems had put the fire out. There were no reported injuries.
The Fire Marshal was called to the scene to investigate. Limited damage was reported.
UPDATE: SFD reports the fire was determined to have been intentionally set. Seattle Police is now investigating. Damage was limited to about $5,000, SFD reports.
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The City of Seattle team dedicated to homelessness outreach and “resolution” of camps is slated to clear tents, belongings, and debris from encampments that have formed on the blocks around 13th and Howell on Capitol Hill before the end of the month.
The tents and camping have been the subject of complaints including concerns from parishioners and officials at the area’s Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption. “They are afraid to come. We want them to get [the homeless] help, we want them to get off the streets,” the church community’s president told KOMO. “We don’t have the infrastructure as a small church to do that ourselves.”
The situation has now been widely reported and picked up at the national level by outlets including Fox News.
A spokesperson for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority provided a statement to CHS that echoed what the organization has been telling national media. “We are aware of this particular encampment, and are in communication with outreach teams, but the need for housing and outreach is much greater than current capacity,” the spokesperson said, referring CHS to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office and the City Hall department that remains tasked with clearances of camps in the city despite the formation of the regional authority. Continue reading →
Capitol Hill community center the Polish Home and a neighborhood p-patch have been selected for $75,000 in support from the city’s Neighborhood Matching Fund.
The grants are part of $818,698 supporting 21 different community-initiated projects in neighborhoods across the city part of the latest matching fund awards.
The Polish Cultural Center was awarded $48,875 to upgrade 18th Ave’s Dom Polski with a new HVAC system “to enable the community to continue to use this special space for Polish cultural events and community gatherings like National Night Out, Neighborhood Block Parties, and other programs.” Continue reading →
Groups of residents and protesters awaited a Friday night tour of Seven Hills planned with city officials. Public safety director Andrew Myerberg met privately with a smaller group, instead.
The notices went up Tuesday at the park. Thanks to a neighbor for the picture.
The city has posted notice that Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills Park will be cleared of tents and belongings Thursday as Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office says it is responding to concerns following months of complaints from neighbors about tents and disorder in the 16th Ave at E Howell park.
Officials say they requested “that outreach efforts at Seven Hills Park intensify” in advance of the Thursday sweep.
“At the beginning of this week, city staff observed 12 tents, and outreach has identified eight individuals residing at this location long-term,” a Seattle Parks spokesperson said.
Officials say the effort had resulted in two referrals to “24/7 enhanced shelter” — “outreach is ongoing and those remaining onsite will all receive offers of shelter prior to an encampment removal,” the spokesperson said.
UPDATE 2/17/2022 9:30 AM: The clearance is underway:
The sweep follows months of complaints from residents in nearby buildings about camping in the park that began at the height of the pandemic with the number of tents ebbing and flowing along with clearances at other nearby parks spaces including Cal Anderson, Williams Place, and Miller Playfield. Continue reading →
See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS 911 coverage here. Hear sirens and wondering what’s going on? Check out Twitter reports from @jseattle or tune into the CHS Scanner page.
Armed robbery K9 search: The blocks around a 14th and Howell construction site were locked down as police and a K9 unit searched the area following a reported armed robbery early Thursday morning. Witnesses report SPD patrol vehicles in the area warning residents to stay inside during the canine tracking effort to find a suspect who reportedly held up a construction worker who encountered the man at the residential construction site just before 6 AM Thursday. “On 08-12-2021 at 0555 hours, the male victim entered his construction site to ensure it was ready for the work-day when he was surprised by an unknown suspect who pressed a handgun into his side and demanded the victim empty his pockets or be killed,” the SPD brief on the incident reads. “The victim complied then ran away to borrow a phone to call the police.” According to residents and East Precinct radio reports, police locked down the area around the site for around 30 minutes as they searched for the suspect who had made off with the victim’s wallet and vehicle keys in the robbery. Police say the search was not successful. There were no reported injuries and no arrests. Continue reading →
You can finally give up on those rebirth of The Redwood hopes. Nearly two years after the never say die dive bar was finally demolished and erased from Capitol Hill, a permit just issued from the City of Seattle all but guarantees a new boozy offshoot will not rise from the corner of Howell and Belmont
Developer Blueprint Capital has been approved for a change of plans to eliminate the mixed element of its seven-story mixed-use development rising at the corner. The new permit allows Blueprint to transition its plans for a ground floor food and drink space in the project to become two “live/work” units. Continue reading →
The Seattle Fire Marshal was investigating Monday night after firefighters quickly extinguished a blaze inside a 1925-built E Howell apartment building home to 40 apartment units and the Kedai Makan restaurant.
Smoke and fire were first reported in the 400-block E Howell Burlingame Apartments building off E Olive Way around 7:35 PM. Seattle Fire units quickly brought the blaze on the mezzanine level in the building’s residential entrance under control. One early report indicated the fire may have involved a couch.
The building was evacuated during the response and SFD was checking smoke levels inside to make sure it was safe for residents and customers. Kedai Makan is not open for business on Monday nights.
The Fire Marshal was called to the scene to determine what caused the blaze.
A person familiar with the situation, tells CHS that a bartender at Montana, on the other side of the block from the blaze, may have helped save the building when he noticed smoke coming through an emergency exit door, grabbed an extinguisher, and jumped into action. Continue reading →
This being Capitol Hill, it’s probably not hugely surprising that the public design review process for a seven-story microhousing project should be fully in synch with the fate of the dive bar it is set to replace. In an announcement coinciding with the project’s first review in January, CHS reported the news that the Redwood would be closing November 16, 2017. We can now report that, with the second and likely final design review meeting for the project coming up this week, the Redwood will NOT be closing on November 16.
It’s a Thursday, turns out. One final blowout on November 18th makes a lot more sense. UPDATE: Uh oh. Change of plans. The Redwood’s final night is Halloween.
“We plan to close our doors Saturday November 18th (thinking the weekend would be a good last chance to say goodbye),” Lisa Brooke tells CHS, “then we move all our stuff out and will bring it to Port Angeles, where we hope to open a bar/restaurant.”
The Redwood’s heart and soul will live on — it’ll just be on the Olympic Peninsula. Someday, a little Redwood could possibly rise again on Capitol Hill, however.
600 E Howell
The 76-unit Blueprint Howell development planned for the Redwood’s lot is designed by S+H Works to emphasize a “narrow and articulated” form that would focus the mass of the project along Howell and the west of the property while locating the street-level commercial space on the southwest corner of the lot. To make the preferred layout work, developers are asking for a series of zoning departures on the building’s setbacks — back in January, the design board was cool with the exceptions.
There will be no parking spots for cars but the building should have space for about 56 bikes.
The project’s 1,200 feet of commercial space won’t be ready for years but it could eventually be home to a reborn Redwood or another project from the Brookes. Continue reading →
$0. Turns out, a municipality can (probably) use all sorts of characters in its civic investments.
Along with our questions about the logistics of the pavement park program, CHS asked the Seattle Department of Transportation about any licensing arrangement required for Summit at Howell at E Olive Way’sPac-Man Park. It’s all about fair use, a spokesperson tells CHS:
SDOT worked closely with attorneys on evaluating this installation under the Fair Use Act provisions. SDOT believes that the use of the Pac Man inspired mural falls into the non-profit educational clause of the Act- particularly because this interpretation on a street is transformative and new; it captures the original use and design for an entirely different, educational, and not-for-profit purpose. Because we are not using the image for proprietary purposes, the city’s attorneys considered this installation to be defensible.
Forgive us for being paranoid. Capitol Hill just happens to have a history of litigation related to some of its more popular examples of street art.
Meanwhile, this might be now be the closest point to the park at which to play its namesake game:
Holy shit! My PAC-MAN machine at John John's is working again! It's been broken for over a year!! I'm such a happy Crassy right now! ?
2017 is shaping up to be a sad year for the neighborhood bars of E Howell. Wednesday night, the staff and management of Clever Dunne’s are telling regulars the bad news. At the end of January, the Capitol Hill Irish pub will close.
“It came quick,” Dunne’s manager Jared Thomson tells CHS. “We knew things were happening but not like this.”
Thomson said Clever Dunne’s had another two years on its lease but the pub’s deal has been bought out and the drinking spot needs to be shut down and moved out by January 31st. Continue reading →
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