Seven Hills on a sunnier day (Image: City of Seattle)
A new year, a new city council, and a new mayor did not bring a new start on public safety for Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills Park.
The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department has quietly extended the closure of the fenced-off 16th Ave public space through the end of February.
A parks spokesperson tells CHS the extended closure will give the city another chance to meet with neighbors and park users. Continue reading
The Miller Park pickleball courts are some of the most in-demand hardtop in the city. Joy Hollingsworth says helping shepherd a key repair to the court lights this year was one of her highlights of 2025 representing District 3 on the Seattle City Council.
In the video posted this week, Hollingsworth talks about the repairs made after a bank of lights was damaged by vandalism. The destruction happened in October 2024. The repairs — including work that will make it difficult for somebody to clip the wires again — were finally complete in June.
Along the way, the city’s pickleball community watched “The Miller Court Lights Saga” with incredulity as the long repair process played out with some wondering if the parks department was “slow walking” repairs to cut down on nighttime use. Continue reading
Construction on neighborhood pocket park Cayton Corner is complete and the public space needs a paint job. The search for an artist to create a new mural in the park at 19th and Madison is underway.
The Friends of Cayton Corner and neighboring Hearing Speech and Deaf Center are working with the Seattle Parks Foundation to hire a local artist or artist team to create a mural at the newly completed park.
“This project will celebrate the parkâs namesakes, Horace Cayton Sr. and Susie Revels Caytonâearly Black leaders, publishers, and community buildersâand honor the neighborhoodâs history of resilience, diversity, and creativity,” the groups say. Continue reading
The shelterhouse (Image: CAPA)
With reporting by Hannah Saunders
As the city is gathering feedback on activation strategies it hopes could help address public safety concerns around three Capitol Hill parks including one the parks department said it needed to fence off to reset after bouts of “negative park activity,” a resource at the center of the neighborhood’s most important park should become a bigger part of the mix of activities at Cal Anderson in the year ahead.
A year ago, the Cal Anderson Park Alliance reactivated the parkâs shelterhouse as a means of providing a free space for neighborhood residents to utilize for game nights, meetings, activities, and more. Since this launch, the group says the shelterhouse has been used almost daily, there will be places to sit and hang out in the nearby Capitol Hill Station plaza, and funding coming down the pipeline will allow for additional staffing hours for the shelterhouse and the nearby Cathy Hillenbrand community room, stretching opportunities for the public.
âThere are so few spaces that you can reserve that donât cost a lot of money, that arenât a pain to get to, and we have tried to make this as accessible as possible,â Brie Gyncild of CAPA told CHS. âOut of both spaces now, weâre seeing more community feed opportunitiesâŚitâs just about anything you can think of; there are support groups that meet regularly, there are a lot of community meetings.â Continue reading
Seattle Parks and Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife officials say they are aware of reports of aggressive coyote encounters in Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park including a reported incident over Thanksgiving weekend.
You can help by being aware on walks in the area — and doing your part to keep the animals wild.
The incidents are happening as a coyote that showed signs of having been fed by humans was trapped and killed earlier this month in the Arboretum.
The most recent Volunteer Park incident was reported by Q13 as a man described a coyote that “stalked” his dog. Continue reading
Dialogue circles and sticky notes about Seven Hills Park at Wednesday’s meeting (Image: CHS)
Questions from the parks department survey
Seattle Parks officials say they hope to hand off a report to the mayor’s office by the first week of December on plans to reopen Seven Hills Park and bring changes and activities to parks across Capitol Hill to address complaints about homeless encampments and crime.
Wednesday’s meeting to gather feedback about possible activation efforts and safety changes to the parks drew a strong turnout to the Garfield Community Center as officials organized the crowd into three circles — one for Seven Hills, one for Broadway Hill Park, and the smallest circle for the tiny but still loved Tashkent Park along Boylston Ave. The process reached an acceptable volume level when the large Seven Hills group was moved to the adjacent “teen room.”
There were consistent themes from those who raised their hands to speak in the circles including stories from a parent afraid to take their child to the park following encampment violence and witnessing an overdose and assisting in a resuscitation, and a general feeling that safety and maintenance work decayed during the pandemic and never recovered.
Ideas included increased maintenance, forming volunteer and “friends of” groups, and, one attendee suggested, “replacing all the dirt” in Seven Hills after years of camping and drug use.
“I think our park is representative of the city,” one neighbor said about Seven Hills.
Most speakers agreed on one thing above all else — please, no permanent fences. Continue reading
The city has extended the closures of three city parks including Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills through the end of the year as it prepares to hear from neighbors and parks users about proposed changes including possible new permanent fencing to address concerns about encampments and crime.
With Wednesday night bringing a planned community meeting with city officials to discuss the possible changes to two Capitol Hill parks facing complaints over homelessness and drugs, Seattle Parks and Recreation has also launched surveys to gather feedback.
CHS reported here on the planned Wednesday night session “to discuss priorities and identify âcommunity activation partners and new potential usersâ for Broadway Hill Park and Seven Hills Park which has been fenced-off since September. Broadway Hill Park remains open but has been a center of complaints and Seattle Police Department activity, officials say. Continue reading
Fenced-off a decade later, Seven Hills Park debuted in 2015 (Image: Mithun)
Banners mocking the Seven Hills closure briefly went up behind the fences in October
The city will begin a public planning process next week to reshape two Capitol Hill parks where officials say concerns over homeless encampments, drug use, and “bouts of negative park activity” call for new approaches to Seattle public space.
Seattle Parks and Recreation is holding meetings next week to discuss priorities and identify “community activation partners and new potential users” for three District 3 parks where complaints over camping and crime have sparked the planned overhauls. One of the parks — Capitol Hill’s Seven Hills Park — has been fenced-off and closed since September over the issues. The other — Broadway Hill Park — remains open but has been a center of complaints and Seattle Police Department activity, officials say.
“This community-centered initiative invites residents, businesses, and organizations on Capitol Hill to come together to enhance the safety, vitality, and inclusivity of these neighborhood parks,” the parks department announced about Wednesday’s planned session. “This activation strategy seeks to address ongoing challenges such as safety concerns, accessibility barriers, and park misuse by fostering open dialogue and transparent partnerships.”
Thursday night, parks officials will hold a separate meeting to discuss similar issues at the Central District’s Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park.
CHS reported in September on the surprise closure of Seven Hills after District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth reportedly met with neighbors and the city made an attempt to sweep the park of campers in August.
The city said the shutdown was needed âin order for Seattle Parks and Recreation to assess possible amenity changes and/or upgrades.” Continue reading
(Image: City of Seattle)
The only public swimming pool serving the neighborhoods around the Central District and Capitol Hill will close for a round of upgrades and overhauls to end 2025.
Seattle Parks says the $1.4 million Medgar Evers Pool project will include accessibility improvements, HVAC replacement, and renovation of the men’s and women’s locker rooms.
A study is being conducted to help determine potential structural upgrades for the 1969-built brutalist-style pool building part of the Garfield Community Center campus along 23rd Ave next to Garfield High School. Continue reading
A King County Superior Court judge has ruled that the City of Seattle efforts to improve conditions around Denny Blaine Park including new fences and signs added late this summer are adequate to keep the space open to the public while a lawsuit from neighbors over the nude beach moves toward a spring trial.
Judge Samuel Chung heard an update Friday on the city’s “abatement” plan for Denny Blaine and ruled against lawyers representing a group of anonymous neighbors seeking to shut the park down. Continue reading
