The old Value Village building was temporarily used as a pop-up arts and gathering space

With Capitol Hill suddenly faced with an empty 8,000-square-foot grocery, here is hope for filling some of the neighborhood’s most gaping retail holes with life and activity. The Capitol Hill and First Hill-connected producers behind Bumbershoot have announced they will put downtown’s emptied Bed Bath & Beyond into motion as Cannonball Arts, hosting everything from art exhibits, to concerts, to fashion shows when it opens in spring 2025.

New Rising Sun, now signed up to produce Bumbershoot for the next decade under a leadership group including Steven Severin of Neumos and Life on Mars, and Greg Lundgren of First Hill’s shuttered Museum of Museums and sorely missed Vito’s, announced plans for the new venue and said they are ready to get to work creating two stories of contemporary and performing arts space in the former 3rd Ave store.

“Cannonball Arts gives Bumbershoot a year-round platform to celebrate the wealth of creativity that calls the Pacific Northwest home,” Lundgren, co-producer and creative director of the organization, said. “It is ambitious in scale and scope, will contribute to the revitalization of downtown Seattle, and train the next generation of makers, producers and curators using Cannonball Arts as classroom.”

The new 66,000-square-foot project will revive Lundrgen’s efforts to foster Seattle’s arts scene put on hold by the 2023 shuttering of his Museum of Museums on First Hill that converted an old medical building into a contemporary arts venue. Lundgren has said it his mission to create a better Seattle by increasing the artist population and creating spaces for exhibition.

On Capitol Hill, there are a few thousand more square feet now available. CHS reported earlier this month on the amazingly abrupt shutdown of the neighborhood’s Amazon Fresh grocery store seven and a half years after CHS first reported on rumors surrounding the then top secret project.

The neighborhood has hosted some large scale pop-up arts projects in the recent past. In 2016, the former Value Village was put into motion as a temporary V2 arts space.

Meanwhile, another large and empty Capitol Hill retail space will kick back to life this summer as the Punk Rock Flea Market moves into a former QFC lined up for demolition and redevelopment on 15th Ave E.

On 3rd Ave, the music and arts folks will have help powering the new venue. They are partnering with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe to create the new addition hoped to help boost the city’s downtown.

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