Tag Archives: first hill

911 | SPD reports two surprise drug busts as fire turns up magic mushrooms on First Hill, cops spy fentanyl and meth in Cal Anderson

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See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt/Signal (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS 911 coverage here. Hear sirens and wondering what’s going on? Check out reports from @jseattle or join and check in with neighbors in the CHS Facebook Group.

  • First Hill magic mushroom bust: A fire in a First Hill apartment building turned up what police says appeared to be a “drug lab” for thousands of dollars worth of magic mushrooms set up inside the unit. Seattle Fire called its hazmat team to the 8th Ave building around 5 PM Saturday to investigate the lab that was discovered during an unrelated small fire.
    While rendering the scene safe the SFD used a chemical tester to check for hazardous/explosive materials and found the presence of cocaine. There also appeared to be drug manufacturing equipment present in the apartment.
    SPD says it obtained a search warrant and was seizing the cocaine and “illicit mushrooms” when the resident of the apartment returned. SPD says the suspect was placed under arrest for possession with intent to distribute narcotics and says 1,046 grams of mushrooms were recovered along with a trace amount of cocaine. “It appears the other chemistry equipment in the apartment was being used to sterilize containers for the distribution of the mushrooms and/or cocaine,” SPD says. In 2021, the Seattle City Council passed a resolution “declaring that the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of anyone engaging in entheogen-related activities should be among Seattle’s lowest law enforcement priorities.”
  • Cal Anderson drug bust: SPD says its officers were “proactively protecting the Seattle community and removing dangerous drugs from the streets, holding drug dealers accountable” Saturday night when a group made the job easy:
    At 1826 hours, officers were patrolling around Cal Anderson Park, near the intersection of East Denny Way and Nagel Place, when they noticed a group of individuals gathered closely together on a concrete structure in the park. While observing the group, the officers saw a small clear plastic box containing a white powdery substance resting on one suspect’s lap. Additionally, they noticed the suspect holding a small clear baggie, which the officers believed was intended for packaging narcotics.
    SPD reports officers took the suspect into custody, “and during a search incident to the arrest, they found 101.9 grams of fentanyl, 8.5 grams of methamphetamine, and $655 in cash inside the suspect’s bag.” “Based on their experience, the officers concluded that the suspect was likely involved in selling and/or delivering drugs,” the report concludes.
  • E Cherry DUI arrest: SPD says it arrested a 57-year-old “prolific DUI driver” for crashing into a pole in the Central District:
    On Feb. 14 at about 2 a.m., a police Lieutenant was on patrol near 23rd Avenue and East Cherry Street when he witnessed a single-vehicle collision. The driver exited a parking lot, drove across four lanes of traffic, through a crosswalk, and hit a pedestrian signal pole on the northeast corner. The Lt. determined the man was driving under the influence (DUI) and arrested him. He has a felony conviction for DUI, and previous convictions for Driving While License Suspended 1st Degree and an Ignition Interlock Device Violation. The suspect was transported to the East Precinct for DUI processing. Officers conducted an analysis of his breath, and he was impaired by alcohol more than double the legal limit. He was booked into the King County Jail for DUI-Four or More Prior Offenses, and Ignition Interlock Violation.
    “Noteworthy is that the driver had been arrested/released for felony DUI, IIL, and DWLS-1 in the past 48 hours by KCSO, his second DUI arrest in 2 weeks,” SPD reports. Police say the suspect was being held on $750,000 bail after the arrest.
 

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Piedmont Café brings new life to historic space on First Hill

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Freshly brewed coffee and baked goods now greet passersby on First Hill thanks to Piedmont Café, a new addition to the neighborhood’s hangouts that echoes with the area’s time before the massive health complexes and high-rise apartment and condo buildings. Nestled in a historic building with a storied past, the café is bringing life to the long ago hotel lobby.

“This building was formerly a hotel,” co-owner Charles Scott explained, pointing out the unique layout of the space. “This part was once a plant shop and formerly a storage facility.” The new cafe space now takes over what was the original lobby for the hotel. “For the last 60 years, I guess since ’62, it was sold and made into the Tuscany Apartments. Part of it was even the cafeteria for the charter school a couple blocks away.”

The Seneca Street site was once the Piedmont Apartment Hotel, “with exuberant colored tile and elegant ornament” from one of Seattle’s most prominent architects, the city’s entry on the historically significant structure reads.

Scott and his partner took on the challenge of transforming the historic building into a cozy and inviting café. “We built out the bar, added a floating wall for the storage area, and built out the dish area.” Hoping to keep the space feeling old and comfy, all the furniture was bought used, except for the two couches. “We resurfaced the tables and restored a nice hutch we got from Gig Harbor.” Continue reading →

With echoes of its ‘grand lobby’ past, Piedmont Cafe now open on First Hill

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(Image: Piedmont Cafe)

Enough of closures and looking back. Here is something new — though its inspiration is steeped in the past.

The Piedmont Cafe is now open on First Hill as part of an overhaul of the historic building now known as the Tuscany Apartments.

The Seneca Street site was once the Piedmont Apartment Hotel, “with exuberant colored tile and elegant ornament” from one of Seattle’s most prominent architects, the city’s entry on the historically significant structure reads. Continue reading →

Kaiser Permanente is ending 30-year legacy of Capitol Hill midwives helping Seattle moms and babies

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(Image: Kaiser Permanente)

(Image: CHS)

By Mina Sakay/UW News Lab

As expectant parents begin their pregnancy journey, many seek out midwifery care to reduce the use of medical interventions in labor. But starting in early 2025, that care will be harder to find as decades of midwife-assisted births on Capitol Hill is coming to an end.

Kaiser Permanente’s Capitol Hill-based midwives will no longer deliver babies at Swedish First Hill Hospital in Seattle, according to more than one Kaiser Permanente medical professional, effectively ending the oldest hospital-based midwifery program in Seattle.

Certified nurse-midwives are medical professionals who offer personalized support and care to patients. Midwives deliver babies and provide holistic family-centered care during pregnancy, labor, and after birth.

The Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Midwifery Clinic — originally Group Health before the health care giant swallowed up the smaller provider in 2015 — has been open to the community since 1990, providing services and care to families, according to the Change.org petition created by community members hoping to save the program.

The year of the merger, the former Group Health Capitol Hill campus transitioned from a focus on maternity services, forging a partnership with Swedish. Previously, around 1,700 babies a year took their first breaths of fresh Capitol Hill air at 15th and John.

The new babies land on First Hill these days. Often, there has been a Capitol Hill midwife to help.

“The importance of having certified nurse-midwives in every ob-gyn practice is crucial to improving health outcomes of both babies and mothers,” said Alice Ambrose, a medical assistant at the Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Midwifery Clinic. “The Kaiser midwives are trained in full spectrum perinatal healthcare and Kaiser is one of the only places left in Seattle that they can do this work.” Continue reading →

First Hill’s Town Hall hosts ‘Seattle Nice’ City Council candidate debate — and VP debate watch party

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(Image: Seattle Nice)

The journalists and commentators from the Seattle Nice podcast Erica Barnett, Sandeep Kaushik, and David Hyde will moderate a debate between Seattle City Council candidates Tanya Woo and Alexis Rinck Tuesday night at First Hill’s Town Hall.

The 7:30 PM debate will be preceded by a watch party screening of the night’s scheduled Vice Presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.

You can learn more and get your free to “sliding scale” tickets here.

CHS looked at the battle for the citywide Position 8 seat on the council and Capitol Hill’s shifting political borders here.

You can find all recent CHS election coverage at capitolhillseattle.com/tag/elections.

 

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RapidRide G arrives with ambitious public transit goals — and plenty of hiccups over Madison’s new buses, stops, signs, and signals — UPDATE

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With reporting by Hannah Saunders

The new RapidRide G stretching 2.5 miles along Madison Street from the waterfront to Madison Valley via First Hill and Capitol Hill is unprecedented in the city’s rollout of a growing alphabet of “bus rapid transit” lines. The first days of service across the line’s special coaches, dedicated lanes, center loading passenger islands, and coordinated signaling has been an illustration in the challenges of doing new things in the big city.

Starting with Saturday’s launch, the promise of 6-minute service and smooth rides through the corridor has mostly been out of reach due to early hiccups around signal and signage coordination, collisions, and delays due to mechanical failures and operator challenges with the new coaches.

King County Metro says it is responding to early issues though it also referred some questions about signalling to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

UPDATE: “This is the first RapidRide line with six-minute headways and, as we expected, our operators continue to gain experience with our scheduled operations and maneuvering with the varying traffic conditions along the route,” a Metro spokesperson said in a statement

Metro calls the line’s start a success despite the issues and says it is working with SDOT to address the signal priority issues.

Metro says the new or upgraded signals along the route along with a special signal at the terminal to ensure buses start their routes smoothly will continue to be adjusted.

“Metro and SDOT staff are working to resolve any issues as they come up,” the spokesperson said. “SDOT is currently updating signal timings along Madison Street and at the intersection with Martin Luther King Jr Way. SDOT will keep monitoring and adjusting these signals to improve traffic flow for both buses and general traffic in the coming weeks.”

The full statement from Metro appears at the end of this post.

Other issues also have added up in the growing pains around the newly launched $144 million line that includes bus service 10 new stations between 1st Ave and MLK Jr Way operating from 5:00 AM to 4:00 AM daily with a bus every six minutes between 6 AM and 7 PM Monday through Saturday.

The growing RapidRide system’s arrival on Madison is hoped to optimize an area that was already served by a tangle of Metro routes in neighborhoods unlikely to be connected to Sound Transit’s light rail network anytime soon.

Some issues are small in comparison to the ambitions of the new line. One Rapid G Line bus driver with a year of experience under their belt, for example, told CHS the protocol on the new route requires they switch drivers every time at the end of the route — just one of the many new steps and procedures slowing performance on the new line during the launch.

“It could be worse,” the driver said. Continue reading →

While Seattle figures out its 20-year growth plan, a vision for developing Capitol Hill and First Hill housing, transit, and community from the ground up is also being shaped

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(Image: City of Seattle)

Sometimes when it comes to long range urban planning, you need to start filling in the vital details while still working out high level lofty goals.

City officials are currently gathering feedback on shaping those planning details for growth over the next 20 years in one of Seattle’s most important dense cores in the neighborhoods of First Hill and Capitol Hill. A survey is underway and a meeting will take place next week.

The next 20-year Capitol Hill/First Hill Regional Center plan including environmental, transit, social services, economic, and housing initiatives and goals is being formed even as its larger and more high profile framework under the next Seattle Comprehensive Plan is being shaped.

“You may notice that the draft Comp Plan doesn’t say much about these Regional Centers (for example, the Future Land Use Map just labels them as Regional Centers without adding more specific detail about land uses within them) other than identifying them as the densest areas of the city and allocating jobs and housing targets to each Center,” Jesse London, a planner with the City of Seattle, tells CHS. “The purpose of these Centers plans is to fill in that detail, give extra attention to planning for these critical neighborhoods, and demonstrate how we are preparing them to accommodate these jobs and housing targets.”

Seattle’s planning “Regional Centers” are Downtown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, University District, Northgate, Ballard, and, of course, First Hill and Capitol Hill. Continue reading →

Seattle prepares for new design review landscape

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E Union’s Heartwood was developed without the city’s full design review process thanks to exceptions already in place for affordable housing

 

 

Seattle’s next steps in streamlining its design review process will come amid an effort to “revitalize Seattle’s core” by encouraging more housing across downtown and on First Hill.

A Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection design review report that was delayed for months and eventually released this summer will be heard at the city council’s Land Use Committee this week. Part of the proposed legislation would allow for exemptions on certain types of new construction proposals from the design review process in order to accelerate development. Some worry these recommendations will harm residents by further eroding the city’s design review process. Others say reform can’t come fast enough for a city stuck in an affordability criss.

“Of course, we would have preferred issuing the report sooner, but a long session in Olympia ended in April 2023 and changed the design review landscape with the passage of HB 1293,” Bryan Stevens, SDCI spokesperson, told CHS. “This state legislative change and competing land use priorities in front of us and City Council…contributed to a delay in issuing the final SLI [Statement of Legislative Intent] response, which included the consultant’s stakeholder report and associated cover memo by SDCI and OPCD [Office of Planning & Community Development].”

Stevens said there was broad support among SLI stakeholders, including an 18-member group, for decreasing design review timelines, like rewriting the guidelines to improve clarity for applicants, the community and staff. Stevens said when considering refinements to the design review program, permit efficiency must balance out with housing production and design quality.

“We’re also continuing to respond to the call for supporting the safety and vibrancy of our downtown neighborhoods with a Mayor’s proposal under consideration by City Council to temporarily exempt certain new construction proposals from design review to streamline permitting as a part of the Mayor’s Downtown Activation Plan [DAP],” Stevens said.

If approved by the Council, Mayor Harrell’s proposal [Council Bill 120824] would apply to new housing units, hotels and research and development laboratories in Downtown, Uptown, SLU, parts of SODO, and First Hill for a three-year period. Continue reading →

With First Hill home finally set for demolition and redevelopment, Seattle arts nomad Love City Love in search of new start

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(Image: Love City Love)

Nomadic Seattle arts venue Love City Love is searching for its next home as the end of August brings the end of its stay in a former First Hill dental office on land set to host a mass timber apartment building.

“Love City Love emerged as a blank canvas for the creative community to convene,” the LCL mantra goes. “We believe continuing to craft this alternative is not only possible but crucial to keep art and culture alive and thriving in our city.”

CHS reported here in early 2023 as Love City Love founder Lucien Pellegrin was making preparations for the Seneca dental office building to host the next run of the venue that has grown around its ability to make new gathering spaces in buildings slated for demolition or redevelopment. Continue reading →

First Hill Bank of America slated to close

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(Image: King County)

First Hill is losing a bank. The Bank of America at Madison and Minor is slated to close to start 2025, the global financial giant is telling customers.

In an automated message to bankers, B of A says the closure is planned for January 2025.

A check of city and county records show no changes in ownership and no redevelopment activity for the 1970s-built, one-story commercial building owned by Swedish.

CHS has reached out to Bank of America to learn more. Continue reading →