To celebrate the release of their latest album, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, Seattle-based pop stars Macklemore and Ryan Lewis announced on Wednesday that they will be putting on a “surprise” concert at Neumos this Friday night and the first 500 in line will get in for free. Capitol Hill Times reported that to promote the duo’s second studio album, that drops Friday, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are hosting their free Friday show with Amazon Prime Music and the performance will be streamed live by Amazon. The concert starts 9 p.m. Friday at Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., with doors opening at 8.

Seattle-area single-family home prices are up nearly 10 percent from last December, which, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index released Tuesday, makes Seattle home gains the fourth highest among 20 metro cities. In fact, The Seattle Times reported that Seattle home prices rose at a faster pace than almost all other top 20 metro areas, outpaced only by Portland (11.4 percent), San Francisco (10.3 percent) and Denver (10.2 percent) in annual price increases. Some are worried that home prices are rising faster than inflation, especially given the stock market’s turmoil this year and the current age of this economic expansion, however, David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee, told The Seattle Times that higher home prices are encouraging growth in construction and building industries. “Housing construction, like much of the economy, got off to a slow start in 2009-2010 and is only now beginning to show some serious strength,” he said. The increase in Seattle home prices is not unlike the 2015 national trend in which prices in the 20-city index recorded a 5.7 percent annual gain.

Seattle is considering installing more red light cameras at intersections throughout the city. According to KING 5, there are currently 31 cameras at 23 intersections throughout Seattle and last year a total of 39,414 tickets were issued — that’s more than $5.3 million worth of citations. What’s more is that in a report released by the Seattle Police Department, more than 100 red light camera citations are written out every day in Seattle. Over the past two years, the number of red light camera tickets, which cost drivers $136 a ticket, have gone up by 23 percent. With the potential installation of more cameras, that number is expected to rise. Although future intersection locations have not yet been released, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is in the process of pulling data from suspected “problem” intersections to see where more cameras could be most effective.

Bertha gets back to work, again. Bertha, the machine drilling a tunnel under Seattle, resumed tunneling Tuesday after being shut down for more than a month due to safety concerns, according to KING 5. The state ordered Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP) to stop digging on January 14 after a sinkhole that was 35 feet long, 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep formed behind Bertha and just two days before that, a barge used to haul dirt from construction partially tipped, damaging a pier. In order to get back to work, STP had to implement a number of changes including new personnel at key positions within the tunneling operation, restructured daily tunneling meetings that include additional participants and protocols, realignment of key personnel within their quality assurance program and more. The lifiting of the suspension, however, is conditional. Bertha will dig 160 feet and if WSDOT finds that the new requirements show that everything is working, then Bertha will dig another 100 feet. The tunnel was originally scheduled to be open by now but because of to the two-year break that Bertha had to take, the tunnel is now expected to open in spring 2018.

New images of the proposed 4/C Seattle skyscraper were released, and as proposed, the tower planned for 701 Fourth Ave., would still be the tallest on the West Coast, however the building once designed to have 102 stories has shrunk. Although the exact height of the proposed skyscraper has not been set, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported that information submitted to the city earlier this week states the new building will be “approximately 90 to 100 stories.” Dated designs for the building show the tower as 1,029-feet-tall, which is 96 feet taller than Columbia Center and 11 feet taller than Los Angeles’ U.S. Bank Center, which is currently the West Coast’s tallest building. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules may have prompted reduction in height. After plans for the skyscraper were proposed last year, the FAA sent Crescent Heights Inspirational Living, the developers of the 4/C project, “a notice of presumed hazard” to say that the then 1,117-foot-tall tower could interfere with flights at Boeing Field. The latest drawings that have been submitted to the city show the tower as 94 stories. The city of Seattle still has to approve the project that will serve as a space for office tenants, tower residents and the public to mix and no construction date has been announced, although last year Crescent Heights officials told the city that they would like to start building the 4/C tower in 2017.

A new chancellor must be selected to replace Jill Wakefield, current chancellor of Seattle’s community college system since 2009, who in August announced that she would retire this June. When Wakefield retires, she will have been the longest-serving chancellor in the district’s history. Mark Mitsui, former president of North Seattle College, has been named one of three finalists. Mitsui was president of North Seattle College until August 2013, when he became deputy assistant secretary for community colleges in the U.S. Department of Education. During his tenure at North Seattle College, as reported by The Seattle Times, the school was named one of 12 selected to participate in a national program on successful institutions and the college began offering a baccalaureate of applied science degree, established an evening-degree program and increased international student enrollment. 

The other finalists that are being considered for the position are Shouan Pan, president of Mesa Community College in Arizona since 2008 and Gale Gibson Gayle, president of Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey, since 2013. According to The Seattle Times, the three candidates will participate in open forums on the Seattle college campuses over the next coming weeks, and the five-member board of trustees may also make visits to the candidates’ campuses. The trustees will then make a decision and select the new chancellor in April.