West Seattle’s historic Highland Park Improvement Club building is closed until further notice after an overhang, described as the”eyebrow” of the building, collapsed late today. Nobody was hurt, but the collapse raised safety issues and that means the much-used almost-a-century-old building at 12th and Holden is off-limits for now. Its regular uses include classes – yoga was scheduled tonight – as well as meetings and HPIC events such as Corner Bar and Movie Night; it’s also rented out for special events. We covered its 90th-anniversary celebration in 2009 – read HPIC’s history here – and it’s where we hosted the first candidate forum of last year’s historic City Council District 1 campaign, in February 2015.
Seattle Fire and Police were at the scene to help secure things. So were HPIC leaders, who told us they first heard about this from an apartment resident across the street who reported looking out her window and simply seeing the awning fall down, without even much of a sound. Seattle City Light was en route to check if any power lines were in a precarious spot if the rest of the awning came down. We’ll be following up with HPIC about repair plans and needs.
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