Happy 10th birthday, Capitol Hill Station

Close to 10,000 riders a day now board Sound Transit light rail trains at Capitol Hill Station. That’s not too far off predictions from when the city subway station deep below the corner of Broadway and John carried its first riders ten years ago Thursday on March 19th, 2016.

Will the next four years bring the growth of another 4,000 riders a day needed to hit forecasts? Who knows — but Capitol Hill Station has grown into much of what the neighborhood, city, state, regional, and federal leaders hoped when the ribbon was cut and the confetti fell on that March Saturday as officials and transit lovers celebrated the opening of the colossal $1.9 billion expansion of light rail to Capitol Hill and the University District.

Ten years later as Seattle’s light rail prepares for, perhaps, its greatest expansion with the 2 Line connecting the city to the Eastside across the I-90 bridge through the Central District’s Judkins Park Station, the Capitol Hill subway station is a center of transit activity below hundreds of new apartments, a grocery store, cafes and diners, and a plaza and festival street that makes a weekly home for the neighborhood’s farmers market.

Happy 10th birthday, Capitol Hill Station.

Located 65 feet underground, Capitol Hill Station’s train platform runs along the east side of Broadway between E John and E Barbara Bailey Way. The station is accessed through three street level entrances.

While a Capitol Hill light rail station near Broadway and Denny was part of the earliest Link light rail plans, Sound Transit did explore other options. The primary alternative to the current Capitol Hill station design would have placed the station on the west side of the same block of Broadway, with the main entrance at the southwest corner of Broadway and E John.

That station location was part of a handful of alternative route alignments, including a route running under 10th Ave E to connect to abandoned station locations on the west side of the UW. Another route option would have skipped Capitol Hill altogether with a station at the edge of South Lake Union at Eastlake and Harrison. Other concepts included a second Capitol Hill station near Broadway and Roy that was seriously considered and a station beneath Volunteer Park that was not.

Sound Transit also ended up scrapping a proposed First Hill station on Madison, citing high construction risk and expenses.

Construction of the complete expansion project — the 3.15-mile twin tunnels, Capitol Hill Station, and the University of Washington Station — had a formal budget of $1.95 billion boosted by around $800 million in federal transportation grants.

The project famously came in about $200 million under budget.

While its costs were grouped into the larger expansion, the Hewitt-designed Capitol Hill Station’s construction budget itself likely clocked in somewhere around $315 million by the time of the March 2016 opening.

The work began seven years earlier with the first demolitions on Broadway.

CHS took a look back at the two months of carnage in 2009 that cleared the path for light rail’s arrival as businesses including Twice Sold Tales were uprooted from the block.

Around 18 trucks per day were used to haul dirt away from the Capitol Hill Station site during construction. Sound Transit officials said some 19,900 trucks plied the streets of Capitol Hill hauling muck churned up by the boring machines as 21-foot-diameter drillers Brenda, Balto, and Togo did the nearly flawless work.

As it runs up Capitol Hill, and to Husky Stadium, the tunnel route passes beneath around 250 apartment buildings, homes, and municipal buildings between downtown and Montlake. The twin tunnels run at depths between 15 feet (beneath the Montlake cut) and 300 feet (beneath Volunteer Park) below the surface. The deepest digging between Broadway and downtown bottoms out at a still impressive 150 feet below the pavement.

The station includes some iconic art. The massive, hot pink Jet Kiss sculpture featuring the deconstructed hulls of two A-4 fighters was hung during construction of the Broadway light rail station’s underground platform. Giant, paneled murals Walking Fingers and Crossed Pinkies by Seattle artist Ellen Forney have also become symbols of the station.

The rest of the dreams above Capitol Hill Station didn’t arrive until years after 2016.

Sound Transit signed a 99-year lease with Edlen & Co. to develop the properties it had acquired surrounding the station. The Portland-based developer led the project with designs from Hewitt, Schemata Workshop, and Berger Partnership. Community Roots Housing developed the affordable housing component of the projects.

Shaping that development began decades earlier including 20 years of community engagement to make the projects a reality.

In 2013, the Seattle City Council approved a development agreement allowing developers to plan for 85-foot tall buildings along Broadway in exchange for going above minimum affordable housing requirements. Though many ask today in the midst of Seattle’s ongoing affordability crisis why the apartment buildings aren’t taller, even achieving 85 feet was one battle after another.

The timing of development also was not exactly clockwork. The block sat empty for months before work finally began digging in to complete the Capitol Hill Station vision. The first residents didn’t begin their move-ins until 2021 — five years after the station’s opening.

The buildings above Capitol Hill Station include 428 residential units, thousands of square feet of commercial space including a M2M grocery, 216 parking stalls for cars, hundreds of parking stalls for bikes, and the AIDS Memorial Pathway plaza.

While ridership appears to be strong and growing underground, the above ground components of Capitol Hill Station are still a work in progress.

Sound Transit’s long difficulties with escalator maintenance remain an issue. And cleanliness in and around the station teeters near a tipping point despite efforts like pressure washing contracts and a pigeon relocation project. Sound Transit’s dedication to other above ground components like safe bike parking also can sometimes seem to be lacking. Meanwhile, the area and streets around Capitol Hill Station have finally been made a little bit safer for the crowds accessing the facility and development.

The blocks surrounding Capitol Hill Station have also been somewhat slow to change. The pandemic recovery and current trends around financing, construction, and rents have slowed development from what many expected would happen near the station. Yes, there are still a few single family-style homes left to be redeveloped across from the station.

Above Capitol Hill Station, the spaces are wrestling with other current challenges around public safety and street disorder. Sidewalk benches around the station’s block have been removed just as activation efforts — and new seating — are being planned for the plaza.

The mix above light rail station is also finally settling in — ten years after the station’s opening. There is Seasmith, a day and night cafe. Summit Community Center has grown into a place of belonging, connection, and independence for neurodivergent young adults and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Other new projects are coming including Thai tea and dessert shop Cha Chak from the folks at Manao Thai Street Eats.

Finally, this month, one of the simplest early community visions for the station took shape just as Capitol Hill Station is marking its ten-year anniversary. Early community priorities included hopes of spaces for the smallest of Capitol HIll’s independent business folk and artists to be part of the change at Broadway and John. Like many things at Capitol Hill Station, it isn’t exactly as they planned it, but you can find Zaiquiri and Common Cart selling hot coffee and yaupon from a tricycle in the Capitol Hill Station entrance, a pilot, Sound Transit says, of making space for small vendors in its stations.

“My goal is to take them out of that hustle and bustle,” Zaiquiri says. “Give them a special moment.”

Now 10 years, and many special moments later, Capitol Hill Station is ready to be part of a new leap for Seattle public transit.

Sound Transit has announced the opening of the world’s first light rail on a floating bridge and “crosslake” service will begin March 28. Delayed six years by construction screw-ups and logistical complications, the milestone marks what will be a full transformation of the network into a two-line system — the original 1 Line serving the city and its north-south neighbors, and now the added 2 Line connecting Seattle to Bellevue and Redmond.

The new 2 Line includes Judkins Park Station and its Hendrix inspired design which has been mostly complete and ready for riders as the rest of the new line was delayed for years over issues including a defective track bed that had to be rebuilt twice. As it was being engineered, the station was one of the most complex Sound Transit had tackled. Entrances are located at Rainier and 23rd which includes a prominent entry point for cyclists and pedestrians coming off the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trail. New Jersey-based artist Hank Willis Thomas contributed the Jimi Hendrix murals on two outdoor elevator shafts at the station. Artwork from local artist Barbara Earl Thomas is featured inside the station. A new station on Mercer Island is also part of the new line.

Judkins Park Station and the new line will make Capitol Hill Station even busier. 1 Line and 2 Line trains will “interline” between Lynnwood and the International District, doubling frequency at Capitol Hill Station during peak hours. You’ll see a 1 Line or 2 Line train roughly every four minutes at Capitol Hill Station. If you are headed downtown or to the International District, you can pick any train you like. Headed beyond Chinatown? Take 1 to go south, 2 for east. Judkins Park Station should be about 10 minutes away.

In all, the 2 Line is expected to carry about 50,000 daily riders. With numbers like that, Capitol Hill Station might not end up far from its opening forecasts of 14,000 daily riders.

You can find Capitol Hill Station’s north entry at 140 Broadway E. It turns 10 on Thursday, March 19th. Stop by and take a ride.

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