Thanks to a CHS reader for sending in this picture of the sign

Love City Love is back on the move with a new home on First Hill as the nomadic Seattle arts, music, and community venue awakens from a pandemic-induced hibernation.

“We’re moving forward and things are coming back,” founder Lucien Pellegrin tells CHS. “That was the only reason Love City Love paused. We would have been marching along the whole time.”

In appropriate fashion, the latest Love City Love incarnation will celebrate its opening with a Valentine’s Day party on February 14th.

As usual for the venue and its ability to make new gathering spaces in buildings slated for demolition or redevelopment, the terms of Love City Love’s stay on Seneca Street will be indefinite.

The former dental office building will eventually make way for a downsized timber mixed-use development. That project was to rise to 18 stories and be one of the city’s first mass timber highrises but last summer the developer shifted gears and planning to move forward with a 12-story design.

Neighbors and the community around the old office building, meanwhile, will be happy to see the space back in motion. Recent complaints to the city documented garbage and waste piling up from campers and squatters at the address.

The multistory redevelopment is still coming but it could take years and Pellegrin is ready to get Love City Love back to work after putting the effort on pause.

The last time CHS visited with Love City Love, it was 2019 and the venue was taking shape again in the former Stumptown roasting space beneath the 12th Ave cafe. As the COVID crisis formed, it just wasn’t the right time for Love City Love’s “main product,” Pellegrin said.

“We are community and gathering,” Pellegrin said, “an all inclusive, creative space rooted in health and wellness and positivity.”

Now, with arts, music, and creativity also reawakening and communities better prepared for living with the virus and its repercussions, it is time for Love City Love to return. There will be new aspects that began to form during the pandemic downtime including a new streetwear line espousing positive messaging like “It’s cool to be kind.”

Pellegrin says he is also excited about growing “sober curiosity” and will bring a health and wellness branch to Love City Love’s stay on Seneca with fresh juices and kombucha. Art installations, open mics, skateboarding classes, and brunches could be in the mix.

This part of First Hill is also becoming a surprise artistic core. The Frye Art Museum is nearby and the Museum of Museums overcame the pandemic and city red tape to open in 2021.

Pellegrin says the hope is for Love City Love to return to its pace of amplifying messages of positivity and kindness — “positive messaging,” he said — while remaining an active and nimble part of the city’s arts scenes.

“We’re a mindset,” Pellegrin said. “We’ve left a positive legacy and want to do more.”

The new home for Love City Love can be found at 1422 Seneca. Learn more and keep track of updates on the Love City Love Instagram @lovecitylove.

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