Tag Archives: miller park

Seattle Parks holding community meeting on $2M update of Miller Park playground

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(Image: Seattle Parks)

Seattle Parks is getting ready to kick off the design process for a $2 million renovation of the Miller Park playground next to the Miller Community Center, the Meany Middle School campus, and the Miller Annex Preschool Center.

Thursday night, the city is inviting you to meet with planners and designers to help shape the renovation. Construction is planned to begin in the spring of 2026.

The $1,906,093 project will replace play equipment, install play area grass safety surfacing and make accessibility improvements for the play area adjacent to the Miller Community Center. The equipment will include play structures and seating for children of all abilities ages 2 to 12. Seattle Parks and Recreation says it is working with Inclusion Matters to design the project. Continue reading →

No injuries — but downed wires and smashed cars — as wind brings down big elm at 18th and Howell

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Thanks to CHS readers for the pictures from the clean-up

Last week’s “severe thunderstorm” forecast turned into a spectacular — and rare — lightning show over Seattle but Sunday’s winds did the real damage on Capitol Hill.

As gusts approached 40 MPH Sunday night, a massive American Elm toppled at 18th and Howell around 6:45 PM taking a utility pole and associated lines with it and smashing a few cars parked below.

Continue reading →

Seattle Parks planning $2M update of Miller Park playground

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(Image: Seattle Parks)

Seattle Parks is starting the long process of shaping a $2 million renovation of the Miller Park playground.

A community meeting will be held Wednesday night to discuss the early planning on the project. Groundbreaking isn’t expected until the spring of 2026.

Seattle Parks is inviting neighbors and interested parties “to meet the design team and share your hopes and dreams for the future play area” at the December 11th meeting.

Parks says the project will replace the existing play equipment, make necessary accessibility improvements, and install synthetic turf safety surfacing in the play area. The equipment will include play structures for children of all abilities ages 2 to 12. Continue reading →

Miller Community Center raising funds for new wall mural

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(Image: Miller Community Center)

The Miller Community Center is launching a fundraising effort to create a new mural on the exterior north-facing exterior wall of the building. The project aims to empower local youth and inspire the community through public art.

“This project will brighten the area around the community center, playground, Meany Middle School, and our toddler playroom,” the Miller call for donations and support reads. Continue reading →

Affordable developer Community Roots Housing begins ‘disposition’ process for six more Capitol Hill and Central District properties

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(Image: Community Roots Housing)

Affordable developer Community Roots Housing has not yet put the properties up for sale but an ongoing “disposition” process will include six area apartment complexes including three in a cluster around Capitol Hill’s Miller Park neighborhood.

The early steps in the effort come as the developer says it is facing ongoing challenges from the pandemic including financing issues around its development projects including the new affordable mass-timber development Heartwood at 14th and Union. It also comes in a string of sales the developer has said are strategic transactions and not an effort to sell off its main portfolio. CORRECTION: CHS incorrectly described the Heartwood as a “publicly supported” project but a Community Roots Housing spokesperson says the development was not financed with any public subsidy. We have updated the post.

Previous sales have included some of the more expensive to maintain stock held by Community Roots Housing, created in 1976 as Capitol Hill Housing. The new roster of properties being moved forward under the publicly supported developer’s “Policy Framework for Use of Physical Assets” is different than those recent sales — each of the six properties is subject to federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Housing Assistance Payments contracts.

The six properties are the Elizabeth James, Four Twelve, Hazel Plaza, Mary Ruth Manor, Silvian, and Union James apartment complexes, according to a July Community Roots Housing board update. Continue reading →

No reported injuries as midnight gunfire leaves houses, apartment building, and parked cars near Miller Community Center shot up

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Multiple residences were hit and several vehicles were reported damaged after a bout of gunfire just after midnight around the Miller Community Center parking lot.

Police were called to the area near 20th and Republican around 12:20 AM Saturday after several 911 callers reported gunfire and calls started coming in from nearby residents reporting bullet damage to homes and apartment buildings in the area. Continue reading →

With Seattle’s pickleball courts driving neighbors bananas, city will try new sound-reducing fence at Capitol Hill park

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By Soumya Gupta, CHS Intern

Seattle Parks is responding to surging noise complaints from neighbors around the city’s most popular pickleball courts including Capitol Hill’s Miller Playfield with plans for a new noise-blocking fence. But the department is also scrambling to do more to try to cut down noise from the pandemic-era past time.

While rigorous pickleball matches are happening on courts across the city, the complaints have been centered on three specific Seattle Parks facilities.

“The noise complaints have been coming in for about a year now,” a Seattle Parks and Recreation representative said. “They’re exclusively from neighbors of Miller, Magnolia and Laurelhurst parks.”

To take a swing at the problem, Seattle Parks has devised a noise-reduction project to maintain the status of pickleball in courts, while also doing more to help make sure the game is played within a certain disciplinary framework. Continue reading →

Chin up, this neighbor has added a new place to work out at their Capitol Hill corner

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Lots of neighborhood mysteries pop up in the CHS Facebook Group — What were those sirens? Why is that business closed? When will that business open? — but a recent post had neighbors stumped.

What is this structure at the corner of 19th and John Thomas?

“At first I thought it was a pull-up bar and dip bars .. so I was like: ‘Oh sweet … the city is installing some sort of fitness trail around the neighborhood,'” the poster wrote. “But at second glance the pull-up bar is awfully high … So now I’m wondering if these are some sort of structures installed by the homeowner to grow plants around.” Continue reading →

Rollover crash at 21st and John follows reported armed robbery in Volunteer Park — UPDATE

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Sunday night’s crash scene via the CHS Facebook Group

Suspects in an armed robbery in Volunteer Park attempted to flee on foot after flipping a truck onto its roof as Seattle Police and a K9 unit gave chase Sunday night.

According to East Precinct radio updates and reports from witnesses, police were called to Volunteer Park just before 10 PM to reported shots fired and a victim injured from being punched or pistol whipped in the face in a hold-up inside the park’s water tower.

Minutes later, a responding officer reported spotting the the pick-up used as a getaway vehicle and began pursuit. The crash was then reported with the vehicle flipped near 21st and John after it collided with a moving vehicle in a collision that also damaged other cars parked on the street. Continue reading →

A decade later, checking in on what comes next for a Capitol Hill development once at the center of the Seattle debate over microhousing

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Thanks for the questions in the CHS Facebook Group about the changes at the property

An East Capitol Hill apartment development that became a centerpoint in Seattle’s early debates over microhousing has had an interesting decade and what comes next might say a little about the tiny apartment units and the industry that created them.

Neighbors around 17th Ave E and E Olive St. began asking questions about the twin apartment buildings last month as plywood went up and the property was fenced off.

A decade ago, neighbors and anti-growth advocates cited the 1720 E Olive St. congregate housing project as an example that the city wasn’t doing enough to limit microhousing — especially near areas of single family-style housing and complained that the buildings were poorly made and that the tiny living spaces would become undesirable to residents.

The 60 units across the two buildings at 17th and Olive average 138 square feet apiece, according to King County records. Continue reading →