Seattle finally has the money to build Cayton Corner Park with construction beginning in coming weeks to turn a 4,500-square-foot triangle of land along E Madison at 19th Ave into a new city park at the border of Capitol Hill and the Central District honoring the area’s Black history.

Seattle Parks and Recreation superintendent AP Diaz held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site earlier this week with representatives from the parks department, the Hearing, Speech & Deaf Center and preschool that neighbor the site, and residents from nearby apartment buildings around the wedge of public land across the street from the Mount Zion Baptist Church.

“We look for opportunities anywhere,” Diaz said Monday of the department’s 2011 acquisition of the small but valuable piece of land the park will be built on in the middle of the densely populated and fast-growing neighborhoods around E Madison.

In budget-challenged Seattle, “landbanking” does not pay off quickly.

The land the park will be built on this summer was purchased by Seattle Parks and Recreation in 2011 for $450,000. In 2015, CHS reported on hopes that funding through grants and giving would be in place to have the park built by 2017.

The park was named in 2013 to honor a vital Black Seattle newspaper publisher. In the time since, 14th Ave E’s Cayton-Revels House has become a city protected landmark to honor Horace Roscoe Cayton, publisher of Seattle Black-owned newspaper the Seattle Republican, and his wife and associate editor Susie Sumner Revels Cayton.

Now work is finally set to build the park after 15 years of planning and community involvement. The community’s care of the space has ebbed and flowed over the years with the space being used for occasional gatherings and, as the city emerged from the pandemic, encampments that have frequently been cleared.

Seattle Parks is limited with how much new public space it can add given the area’s high real estate values but opportunities still exist. The next new park project on Capitol Hill is being planned on 1.6 acres of North Capitol Hill land in memory of philanthropist Kay Bullitt. The area’s existing park resources also require investment. Officials say the fences are down and Cal Anderson’s lawn bowl is finally reopened after last year’s removal of the Black Lives Memorial Garden. Diaz tells CHS the bowl area is hosting weekly music events in the park and that activations including summer movies are coming. CHS reported here on plans to hire a new “activation manager” to help bring more events and activities to Cal Anderson.

Along E Madison, the Cayton Corner design will create a small lawn area, an accessible pathway through the park, retaining walls to address grading challenges, a stairway, picnic tables, and handrails, according to the city’s contract for the work. Special features will include an “Art Wall” installation of an “Alphabet Soup” screen wall and electrical and lighting Installation of poles and wall-mounted stair lighting. The design will also retain the existing large tree at the corner along 19th Ave as “an anchor design element.”

Buckley-based WS Contractors won the construction contract for the project with a $607,000 bid, according to the city.

With $200,000 in design work, acquisition costs, and construction, the park will be a Seattle Parks Foundation and levy-powered $1.25 million, 15-year investment in the community when it finally opens.

The city’s prioritization of the Cayton Corner construction spend lines up with an even larger investment. E Madison’s $134 million RapidRide G bus rapid transit route is also completing construction this summer.

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