What's making all that noise off Linden Avenue this month? If you've walked a dog near Bitter Lake since June, you already know the answer, and if you haven't, the excavators will make it obvious the next time you do. Seattle Public Utilities is in the middle of tearing down the neighborhood's old drinking water reservoir, jackhammers and all, on a schedule that runs through October.
That alone would be worth a paragraph. What makes this particular stretch of Broadview's calendar interesting is what's happening at the other end of the neighborhood at almost the same time. By late October, while the reservoir site is still raw dirt and construction fencing, the chum and coho salmon will start showing up in Piper's Creek at Carkeek Park, the way they have every fall since a handful of volunteers spent decades bringing the run back from zero. One corner of Broadview is losing a piece of infrastructure that's been here since before most of the neighborhood's current homes were built. Another corner is about to host a return that predates the neighborhood entirely. Both are happening within a six-week window this fall, on opposite ends of the same six square miles.
Six Acres Coming Free at Bitter Lake
The reservoir sitting on the 13-acre site near Linden Avenue North and North 143rd Street holds 21 million gallons and is old enough that it's simply reached the end of its service life. Seattle Public Utilities is replacing it with a new tank that holds the same volume but sits partially buried with a smaller footprint, which is the whole reason this project matters beyond the utility bill. Right now, only about four of the site's 13 acres are open space, a playground, and the community garden. Once the new reservoir is in the ground, that grows to more than six acres of open space for the community.
That's not happening this year. The demolition and excavation running from June through October 2026 is just the first phase. Actual reservoir construction is scheduled for 2027 into mid-2028, with the surrounding park improvements following in 2028 and stretching into 2029 and 2030. The engineer's cost estimate for the reservoir replacement alone runs to roughly $57.7 million. The schematic plan Seattle Parks has floated for the eventual park space includes an expanded P-Patch, two play areas, a food forest, an off-leash dog area, and an elevated boardwalk, though the design consultant to firm up those details isn't expected to come on board until late 2026 or early 2027.
The practical takeaway for anyone living near the site this fall: expect noise from heavy equipment through October, and don't expect to see the payoff, in the form of new trails or garden plots, for another two to three years. The Bitter Lake P-Patch itself stays open to gardeners through all of it, so that part of daily life continues uninterrupted even as the ground around it changes shape.
The Fish Don't Care About the Construction Schedule
Carkeek Park's chum and coho runs generally start in late October and continue through early December, and Piper's Creek is one of only two salmon runs left inside Seattle city limits, and the only one with fish that still spawn there regularly. That's the result of a restoration effort that began in 1979, after the last known wild spawning pair was seen in 1927 following decades of logging and urbanization.
The 2024 run put a number on just how far that restoration has come. Volunteers with the Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project counted over 1,500 live chum salmon in a single day that November, more than the total recorded across any full spawning season since annual counts began in 1987. A typical return runs closer to 300 fish for an entire season. Whether 2026 repeats that scale is impossible to say in August, but the setup will look familiar: Salmon Stewards stationed at the park every weekend in November, easy to spot in their blue vests along the stream trail, building toward a Salmon Celebration Day, which fell on Saturday, November 22 in 2025.
If you want to see it without guessing at timing, park near the Carkeek Park Environmental Learning Center or the school and walk in, since the lot right along the creek fills up fast once the run is underway.
The Bridge That Won't Move Until 2027
Carkeek's other long-running project sits a few hundred yards from the creek, at the pedestrian bridge that crosses the BNSF railway to connect the park's main trails and playground to its beach and tidepools. That bridge was built in 1955 and is due for a $7.4 million replacement, a project that's been in planning since the winter of 2022.
Geotechnical work to test soil conditions wrapped up last year, which meant intermittent park closures in May 2025 for drilling and helicopter lifts on the beach. Construction itself isn't scheduled to start until spring 2027, with completion projected for winter of 2028 into 2029. Early concept renderings from the project's architects show an accessible replacement with viewing platforms built into the design, a meaningful upgrade from the narrow span that's there now. For this fall and next, the practical effect is minimal: the bridge stays open, the beach stays reachable, and the next round of closures likely won't arrive until construction actually begins.
The One Piece of Broadview That Isn't Changing
Not everything on this side of Seattle is mid-transition. Dunn Gardens, the 7.5-acre Olmsted-designed property tucked into a residential street in the neighborhood, has run on the same rhythm for decades. Designed in 1915 for the Dunn family's summer home and opened to the public for tours since 1993, the garden closes every August and reopens for its fall docent season in September, running through October before going quiet again until spring. Tours run several days a week, typically Thursday through Saturday, and last about ninety minutes through the mature rhododendrons, Douglas firs, and woodland paths that make up one of the only Olmsted-designed residential gardens open to the public in the state.
For a neighborhood currently watching one piece of century-old infrastructure come down at Bitter Lake, there's something worth noticing in the fact that Dunn Gardens, closer to that same age, isn't going anywhere. It just closes for a month and comes back.
Where This Leaves Broadview This Fall
| Site | What's happening now (August 2026) | What's next |
|---|---|---|
| Bitter Lake Reservoir | Demolition and excavation, heavy equipment noise through October | Reservoir rebuild 2027–2028, park space opens in phases through 2029–2030 |
| Carkeek Park, Piper's Creek | Quiet until late October, then chum and coho begin arriving | Salmon Stewards weekends in November, celebration day likely late November |
| Carkeek Pedestrian Bridge | Open, no active construction | Construction begins spring 2027, completion winter 2028/29 |
| Dunn Gardens | Reopening for fall docent tours in September | Tours run through October, closed again November–March |
None of these four things are on the same timeline, which is exactly the point. Broadview isn't a neighborhood that changes all at once. It's one where a reservoir gets rebuilt over three years while a garden keeps the same visiting hours it's had for thirty, and where a creek that had zero wild salmon in it for half a century now draws volunteer crews every November weekend to count more fish than anyone expected.
If you're out walking this fall and want to make an afternoon of it, Broadview Tap House on North 125th Street and Bick's Broadview American Grill on Greenwood Avenue North are both close enough to Carkeek and Bitter Lake to make a natural stop after a walk down to the creek or a lap around the reservoir fencing to see how the demolition is coming along.
For more on what's happening around this part of northwest Seattle, the Broadview neighborhood page and our earlier locals guide to Broadview cover more of what makes this stretch of the city distinct. And if you're ever curious what any of this means for property values or timing near these projects, Samie Bryan has spent two decades watching Broadview change one project at a time. Let's Connect.
