12th Ave Square Park debuted this month in 2016.
Here’s what Squire Park neighborhood advocate Bill Zosel had to say about the project at the time:
The park is the result of a decade of advocacy by 12th Avenue Stewards a neighborhood group, including residents, business owners and institutions, formed in the 1990s to champion the redevelopment of 12th Avenue. Twenty years later, 12th Avenue Stewards continues to be an active neighborhood partner working with the City, local businesses and nonprofits, to advance the 12th Avenue Urban Village as a neighborhood corridor of vibrant businesses, restaurants, arts organizations, and institutions.
CHS mostly focused on the pavement as the park space was designed designed by Hewitt Architects and artist Ellen Sollod with input from the community as a plaza with an adjacent one-block woonerf that Seattle Parks said would provide “pedestrians and cyclists priority on the street” while the “technique of shared spaces, traffic calming, and low speed limits contribute to improved pedestrian, bicycle, and automobile safety.”
The park came to life on an empty, 7,322-square-foot, gravel-covered lot across from Seattle U as a paved plaza with native plantings, raised pedestals, and a rubber coated mound that, CHS said at the time, answers the cross-neighborhood call of Cal Anderson’s Teletubby Hill.
Above it all still floats the mirrored sculpture by Sollod.
The 12th Ave project was allocated $500,000 from the 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy, $490,000 from the Pro Parks Levy, and the Seattle Parks Foundation also pitched in $70,000. SDOT also picked up part of the bill for the woonerf.
Businesses have grown on the park’s edges including the longtime home of the first Ba Bar and a 12th Ave location of Boon Boona Coffee.
No events have been announced to mark the anniversary.
Other Capitol Hill area parks are being prepared for changes, however. CHS reported here on the plan to take down the fences and reopen Capitol HIll’s Seven Hills Park before the end of the month as the city tries to stamp down public safety concerns around encampments, drug use, and disorder in smaller parks around Capitol Hill and the Central District.
12th Ave Square park is located at 564 12th Ave.
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