CHS readers pick the most important Capitol Hill stories of 2025

The people — at least 306 of them — have spoken. These are the most important CHS stories of 2025.

Over the holidays, we posted our annual CHS Year in Review with our top stories from 2025. We also asked CHS readers to weigh in on which stories they felt were the most important as the neighborhood looks to the new year ahead.

This year’s top results focus on some of the most painful memories and lessons of 2025 — and some of the uncertainty. There was also hope — Katie Wilson’s victory managed to climb its way to a third place finish in the survey.

CHS MOST IMPORTANT 2025 STORIES — READERS’ CHOICE

• PIKE/PINE GUN VIOLENCE: Matters of life and death are larger than the calendar. A year of deadly Pike/Pine gun violence stretched back to October of 2024 when 25-year-old Breanna Simmons was gunned down on 11th Ave in a murder that has not been publicly solved. Looking back just a bit further, 23-year-old Kenji Spurgeon was shot and killed in July in a parking lot at 10th and Pine. Last New Year’s Eve, 29-year-old Jonny Adamow was shot and killed at Broadway and Pike. This fall, 26-year-old Robert Fleeks and 18-year-old Jaydon Jameson were murdered within two blocks of Broadway and Pike. The latest killings brought new calls for more to be done as District 3 rep Joy Hollingsworth released a five-point plan of “immediate actions” needed to address ongoing safety issues in the area.
  

  The full 2025 survey roster

• GIANT EXITS: Capitol Hill’s collection of empty giant commercial spaces grew in 2025. In September, coffee giant Starbucks shuttered its $20+ million Capitol Hill Roastery. June brought the abrupt end of the one-of-a-kind, mixed-use Redhook microbrewery below the Pike Motorworks apartments. Summer’s Broadway Whole Foods shutdown at the center of neighborhood worries around the future of grocery stores belongs here, too.
• WILSON WINS: A Capitol Hill renter will be the next mayor of Seattle as Katie Wilson led a progressive resurgence in the November election and narrowly defeating the incumbent. Harrell was the city’s second African American mayor and its first Asian-American mayor. The last time an incumbent mayor was reelected in Seattle was in 2005. Wilson, a Capitol Hill resident and progressive organizer, socialist, and leader at the Transit Riders Union who campaigned on her leadership around minimum wage and renters rights campaigns across the region faced a strident attack from Harrell as the incumbent pushed back following a terrible showing in the primary, criticizing Wilson as a child of privilege without adequate experience for City Hall, and claiming his opponent was a leader in the defund the police movement. Wilson painted Harrell as out of touch and focused on her messages around affordability and underserved communities including leading the city with plans to create $1 billion in union-built affordable housing, build 4,000 units of shelter, and expand police alternatives like the Community Assisted Response & Engagement Department’s crisis responders while also fielding smaller initiatives like championing creation of more public restrooms in the city.
• BROADWAY CRISIS CARE CENTER: Months of opposition and pushback from area business and property owners made way for King County’s plans to open a new Crisis Care Center at Broadway and Union by 2027. CHS reported in October on the approval of the $56 million plan to acquire the property, overhaul the building, and hire an operator for what is planned to be the second in a network of five county facilities providing 24-7 walk-in and emergency care mental health clinics funded by a 2023 voter-approved levy.
• GROCERY STORE WORRIES: The uncertainty around the future of the grocery store in big cities like Seattle and densely populated neighborhoods like Capitol Hill grew more clouded in 2025 with the sudden summer shuttering of the Broadway Whole Foods coming at the center of debate over a new ban on leases that block new groceries and pharmacies. Meanwhile, the experience of shopping in grocery markets around Capitol Hill and the Central District continued to degrade.

Meanwhile, CHS’ Year in Review survey respondents showed a higher level of pessimism than we’ve previously seen with only 16% saying they were more optimistic about the year ahead on their street and just under 24% for their neighborhood. Their city optimism prediction leapt to 37% for the city as a whole. As usual lately, CHS readers are feeling even more dismal about the future of their state, their nation, and their planet.

Thanks to those who voted and thanks for reading CHS.

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