A long-unused staircase beside Broadway has lingered for years as one of Capitol Hill's stranger unfinished pieces, a concrete remnant tied to a larger plan that never fully came together.

That space could still be headed for a different future. As King County has released details of a higher construction budget for the Central Crisis Care Center planned on Broadway, the adjacent idea of turning the dead-end stair site into a public plaza appears to be back in play.

In a dense stretch of Capitol Hill, even a small public space could change how the block feels. A plaza there would replace an awkward leftover structure with a more usable edge along one of the neighborhood's busiest corridors.

For now, the staircase remains in place. But with the larger project moving forward, the possibility of finally remaking the site into a public plaza is back on the table.