Tag Archives: across i-5

Here’s how to take a tour of Seattle’s new $2B convention center expansion

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(Image: Seattle Convention Center)

Seattle’s possibly unnecessary but still pretty damn gorgeous $2 billion convention center expansion debuts this week. CHS reported here on how the project has reshaped one of the key connections between Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle.

Friday will bring a rare opportunity to wander the brand new facility with free public tours “for community members to see the anticipated new convention center and learn about its beautiful architecture, public benefits, sustainability efforts and much more” —

When: Friday, January 27, 2023
1:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Where: Summit | Seattle Convention Center
900 Pine Street

Visitors are encouraged to register for the event here.

Its developers say the new addition makes the facility the nation’s “first high-rise convention center” with the new Summit and original Arch building now making up a 1.5 million-square-foot campus across Pike and Pine and a new shape for the gateway to downtown.

Seattle Convention Center’s $2B ‘Summit’ expansion — a big bet on a chunk of downtown and reshaping a connection to Capitol Hill — to debut in January

 

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Seattle Convention Center’s $2B ‘Summit’ expansion — a big bet on a chunk of downtown and reshaping a connection to Capitol Hill — to debut in January

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(Image: Seattle Convention Center)

Seattle’s $2 billion convention center expansion that has reshaped one of the key connections between Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle will host its first event in January. The expansion debuts in an uncertain era for the convention industry and work-related travel.

The developers of the project have announced a January 25th grand opening of the Seattle Convention Center’s new Summit expansion that adds just under 600,000 square feet of space in the new multistory building that has been under construction along Pine since 2018. The nearly double convention capacity arrives as recent years of pandemic restrictions and societal changes have reshaped how people work and travel.

“More than a decade ago, the Center’s board of directors determined that the economic impact benefiting the state of Washington could be substantially increased by the addition of a second SCC facility,” the press release on the grand opening reads. “This is highlighted by the fact that between 2012 and 2015, the Center turned away over 300 potential events due to the unavailability of space in the Arch Building on the dates desired.”

The original building debuted in June, 1988, by the way.

The announcement from officials and developer the Pine Street Group also contains a whiff of an idle threat alluding to the decision for the convention center board to choose to expand downtown — and not in Bellevue. “Congratulations are in order to the board for having the vision to build two stacked buildings in downtown Seattle,” Frank Finneran, chair of the SCC board of directors, said in the announcement. “This project was more complex and difficult than building in the suburbs, but the vision has now become a reality.” Continue reading →

Police: Capitol Hill Door Dash driver clings to windshield and hangs on across city as thief speeds off with his delivery car

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A Door Dash driver’s late Thursday night assignment on Capitol Hill turned into a ride for his life after someone tried to steal the the delivery person’s car and sped across the city with the victim screaming and witnesses calling 911 to report the strange scene as it crossed into downtown Seattle.

According to the SPD brief on the January 20th incident, witness reported the auto theft in progress around 11:30 PM near Boylston and Olive: “1 MIN AGO, VEH SPED BY WITH SOMEONE ON FRONT OF VEH HOLDING ONTO WINDSHEILD SCREAMING STOP STOP, L/S SB.”

“Officers conducted an extensive area check and spoke with witnesses in the area and determined a general direction of which the vehicle traveled with the subject on the hood of the vehicle,” the report reads. “Officers were unable to locate the vehicle.”

Continue reading →

Dueling piano bars? The future of former Re-bar is Keys on Main — UPDATE: No Dorothy’s on Broadway :(

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Coming to the former Re-Bar (Image: Keys on Main)

Was Re-bar an extension of Capitol Hill? Or was Capitol Hill an extension of Re-bar? We’ll never know. Closed during the pandemic and reportedly on the hunt for a new Seattle-area home, Re-bar won’t be coming back to Howell St. as its old space is making a home for a new piano bar just as a new ebony and ivory tinkled venture is being readied on Broadway.

According to construction permits and a newly issued liquor permit, the former Re-bar is being prepared to reopen as the new home for Seattle’s Keys on Main piano bar. Continue reading →

Worker dies in reported equipment fall at convention center construction site — UPDATE

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(Image: SDOT)

One worker was reported dead after equipment reportedly fell from an upper level of the downtown convention center construction site Monday afternoon.

Seattle Fire was called to the 9th Ave scene just before 2 PM for a “rescue extrication” call at the construction site but a department spokesperson said the person was dead at the scene. According to Seattle Fire radio updates, a lift reportedly fell from the second level of the construction site near 9th and Pine. Continue reading →

COVID-19 has wiped out Seattle’s hotel tax revenue putting $1.8B convention center expansion ‘at risk’

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Lying across I-5 from Capitol Hill, the massive hole filing quickly with steel girders where the state’s downtown convention center expansion is rising might also need to suck up new financing and federal assistance.

Saying the project is now “at risk,” officials are scheduled to hold a Friday morning press conference about the COVID-19 crisis snuffing out key funding for the massive project and new efforts “fighting for critical federal support to find new financing to keep the $1.8 billion WSCC Addition project under construction.”

“The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in plummeting lodging tax revenues, which support the bond funding that pays for the project,” an announcement of the Friday conference reads. “A long-planned second round of bond financing is required but is lacking sufficient tax revenue to support it.” Continue reading →

Seattle’s next top crisis: the cracking West Seattle Bridge

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Seattle has another crisis on it hands. Even with costly repairs, the high bridge to West Seattle won’t reopen to traffic until 2022.

Three weeks after the 1984-built structure was closed to traffic when routine inspections revealed unexpected deterioration, the Seattle Department of Transportation has announced some likely terribly expensive bad news:

We do not yet know if repair of the bridge is feasible technically or financially. If repair is feasible, it’s likely this would only restore up to an additional decade of life to the bridge. In either case, we will need to replace the West Seattle High Rise-Bridge much sooner than promised when it opened in 1984. Further, should repair prove feasible, under a “best case” scenario we do not anticipate traffic returning to the bridge in 2020 or 2021.

Continue reading →

Seattle Fire knocks down blaze at treed encampment near convention center

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Thanks to a CHS reader for this picture from above the fire scene

Seattle Fire and Seattle Police responded to a fire that reportedly broke out at an\ encampment and spread to nearby trees near the downtown convention center above I-5 Friday night.

911 callers reported flames shooting into the sky and multiple explosions at 9th and Pike. According to emergency radio updates, witnesses said a tent set up below the trees on the northeast corner of the intersection above I-5 caught fire, igniting at least one of the large trees.

Arriving police reported the sound of explosions coming from inside the burning encampment.

Seattle Fire arrived within minutes and reported the fire under control.

There were no immediate reports of serious injuries. We do not have information on the extent of damage to the camp or the trees.

Temperatures Friday night were in the low 40s and expected to dip into the upper 30s overnight.

A picture showing the full extent of the fire and more details from the scene was posted to Reddit:

Continue reading →

Eight years in, Seattle ready to study ‘engineering and financial feasibility’ of lidding I-5

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It’s a Seattle Freeway Revolt of a different sort and now the city has the money to execute an engineering and financial feasibility study of the potential benefits “for covering more of the I-5 freeway trench in central Seattle.”

The $1.5 million in funding from the Washington State Convention Center expansion’s $83 million public benefits package is now available to the City of Seattle and an advisory council has been formed, the Lid I-5 community group announced last week:

The study funding enables OPCD to procure an expert consultant team with qualifications in civil and structural engineering, economic analysis, urban design, and environmental mitigation. The study is expected to last through 2019 and will inform the next steps in lid design, planning, permitting, and capital funding. Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) staff will be engaged during the process. Recent and ongoing freeway lid projects – including in Bellevue, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Philadelphia – provide helpful case studies and a pool of experienced specialists that Seattle’s effort can draw from.

Continue reading →

50 years after ‘Freeway Revolt,’ I-5 lid between Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle visions take shape

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There’s a sort-of joke that floats around in land use circles that when deciding what to put on a piece of property: They’re not making any more land.

But if a Seattle group has its way, the city just might make more land — smack in the middle of it all — by putting a lid on I-5.

“A freeway lid is literally making land out of thin air,” said David Yeaworth, a consultant who worked with the group proposing the idea.

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/event/lid-i-5-collaborative-final-presentations/

A citizen-led effort to put a lid over I-5, and develop ideas for what to do with the new real estate, is nearing a new phase with a presentation event next Wednesday night, October 3rd, on Capitol Hill. Teams will share their ideas shaped over months of community design gatherings for how a lidded I-5 might look, and what sorts of buildings and facilities could possibly go on it. Continue reading →