The spring tour is hoped to be the start of needed changes for Pike/Pine

The GSBA chamber of commerce says it is working with a Pike/Pine property owner to build on neighborhood efforts over the summer that are driving change at Seattle City Hall to address the neighborhood’s public safety issues.

A batch of community-driven line items including $100,000 for a new Capitol Hill community safety coordinator position and $150,000 to support a new street Ambassador Program on Capitol Hill are on the table as District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth works with the Seattle City Council this week to finalize the city’s budget.

Those asks, the GSBA says, are the direct result of the new efforts to connect with city officials.

“There’s so much frustration with residents and business owners that it helps to see the people who are in power,” the GSBA’s Laura Culberg says. “Let’s just be in the same room.”

With help from 4N Properties, owners of the 112-year-old Tyson Oldsmobile Company building at the corner of Pike and Broadway, Culberg says the GSBA is planning to keep the momentum going with a community meeting later this month at Stoup Capitol Hill the organizers hope is strongly attended by the neighborhood’s business and nightlife community, and residents.

The Capitol Hill Business Safety Social planned for Monday, November 18th from 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM will include discussions with Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess, Seattle Director of Public Safety Natalie Walton-Anderson and Davonte Belle of CARE, Seattle’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement team hoped to become the city’s first responders for mental health and drug crisis 911 calls. Hollingsworth is also expected to attend.

The GSBA is calling the session “an afternoon of insight, community, and collaboration” and is distributing a survey to identify “top neighborhood or safety questions” that should be addressed.

The session on the 18th is hoped to be the start of quarterly meetings focused on Capitol Hill public safety that bring similar rosters of high-ranking city officials to the table. Culberg said she hopes efforts like the revival of the Capitol Hill Community Council can also connect and help drive changes.

The new efforts are growing from the results of a neighborhood tour this spring that gave Hollingsworth and officials from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office and the East Precinct a first-hand look at the challenges neighborhood business and property owners say are the result of open drug dealing and drug use and street disorder in the area surrounding Cal Anderson Park and the Broadway and Pike QFC.

The city’s renewed exclusion zone laws will include the Pike/Broadway core in the Capitol Hill “Stay out of Drug Area.”

In spring, those who came along on the tour told city officials the situation around Broadway and Pike and on the edges of Cal Anderson needs emergency attention but acknowledged that even issues as seemingly simple as providing public restrooms are not easy in present day Seattle.

That safety walk also included a flaming reminder of the challenges the area faces as someone set fire to a portable toilet in Cal Anderson during the tour. The group quickly tracked down a fire extinguisher before the flames could spread.

The spring tour’s flaming example

Seven months later, councilmember Hollingsworth has included a roster of Capitol Hill public safety asks in her proposed additions to the city’s 2025 spending plan. They include a request to increase the Department of Neighborhoods budget by $125,000 to pay for a community safety coordinator for Capitol Hill while another $100,000 would go to extending contracts for coordinators in Ballard, South Park, and the International District.

Hollingsworth also proposes an appropriation to the Office of Economic Development of $150,000 in 2026 to support a new Ambassador Program on Capitol Hill. “Funding would be provided to an organization with ties to the Capitol Hill business community to assist with a variety of tasks ranging from visitor assistance to outreach with unhoused neighbors, and engagement with businesses,” the proposal reads.

The councilmember has said she also wants public art to be part of improving the environment around Cal Anderson. Her proposals include using $250,000 in JumpStart funding to “support murals in and around Cal Anderson Park” through the HopeCorps program and another $25,000 to fund the painting of the park’s bathroom.

The Hollingsworth Capitol Hill line items must now survive the final negotiations and cuts as the council tightens the city’s belt to overcome a projected $250 million budget deficit. With the final debates and votes ready to take place, Culberg says now is the time to contact Hollingsworth and the council to speak up for the Capitol Hill line items.

Looking forward, Culberg says she hopes the renewed GSBA effort to help represent Capitol Hill’s business communities and the continued push on public safety by 4N Properties and others will help make roles like a new Capitol Hill safety coordinator an effective center to improving life in the neighborhood — and the start of new initiatives that will give Capitol Hill’s core neighborhood’s like Pike/Pine more power to address the problems.

One likely path could be a new organization dedicated to keeping Pike/Pine clean and safer. Early efforts are underway, Culberg says, to organize a campaign to create a new Pike/Pine Business Improvement Area to fund street clean-up efforts for the neighborhood and the area around Cal Anderson Park.

For now, the effort is focused on organizing the first steps and getting everybody in the same room.

The Capitol Hill Business Safety Social at Stoup is Monday, November 18th from 3:30 to 5:30 PM and Stoup Capitol Hill. Take the survey here.

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