City announces ‘ultra high-speed’ broadband demonstration project to include Beacon Hill

This map shows the 12 neighborhoods in the planned Gigabit Seattle demonstration project, including part of North Beacon Hill. Click to see a larger copy of the map.
This map shows the 12 neighborhoods in the planned Gigabit Seattle demonstration project, including part of North Beacon Hill. Click to see a larger copy of the map.

The City of Seattle today announced an agreement with broadband developer Gigabit Squared that plans to use the city’s excess fiber-optic capacity to provide an “ultra high-speed” fiber-to-the-home/business broadband network starting in Fall 2013 with demonstration projects in 12 Seattle neighborhoods, including portions of North Beacon Hill and other Southeast Seattle neighborhoods. An additional part of the project is the development of dedicated broadband wireless connections to multifamily housing and offices, and “next generation” mobile wireless Internet.

The City, the University of Washington, and Gigabit Squared have signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of intent that allows Gigabit Squared to begin raising the capital needed for the first phase of the project.

That’s the good news. The bad news is: only a small part of Beacon Hill is included in the demonstration project (see this map or this map), so this will only improve things for a limited number of residents. However, Gigabit Seattle asks that you sign up on their website to show your interest in having the service so they can determine where to expand next.

Here’s how the city described the plan today in a press release:

1. Fiber to the home and business: Gigabit Seattle plans to build out a fiber-to-the-home/fiber-to-the-business (FTTH/FTTB) network to more than 50,000 households and businesses in 12 demonstration neighborhoods, connected together with the excess capacity that Gigabit Seattle will lease from the City’s own fiber network. Gigabit Seattle’s technology intends to offer gigabit speeds that are up to 1,000 times faster than the typical high-speed connection.

The initial 12 neighborhoods include: Area 1: the University of Washington’s West Campus District, Area 2: South Lake Union, Area 3: First Hill/Capitol Hill/Central Area, Area 4: the University of Washington’s Metropolitan Tract in downtown Seattle, Area 5: the University of Washington’s Family Housing at Sand Point, Area 6: Northgate, Area 7: Volunteer Park Area, Area 8: Beacon Hill and SODO Light Rail Station and Areas 9-12: Mount Baker, Columbia City, Othello, and Rainier Beach.

2. Dedicated gigabit to multifamily housing and offices: To provide initial coverage beyond the 12 demonstration neighborhoods, Gigabit Seattle intends to build a dedicated gigabit broadband wireless umbrella to cover Seattle providing point-to-point radio access up to one gigabit per second. This will be achieved by placing fiber transmitters on top of 38 buildings across Seattle. These transmitters can beam fiber internet to multifamily housing and offices across Seattle, even those outside the twelve demonstration neighborhoods, as long as they are in a line of sight. Internet service would be delivered to individual units within a building through existing wiring. This wireless coverage can provide network and Internet services to customers that do not have immediate access to fiber in the city.

3. Next generation mobile wireless internet: Gigabit Seattle will provide next generation wireless cloud services in its 12 neighborhoods to provide customers with mobile access.

See more about today’s announcement at the Seattle Times, which points out that parts of the East Side already have fiber broadband, and residents of Ephrata in Grant County have “one of the world’s fastest broadband services” — for $45 per month. Some parts of Seattle already have access to this speed as well, including the South Lake Union neighborhood through CondoInternet, which charges $200 per month for their “up-to-gigabit-speed” service. Gigabit Seattle has yet to finalize the rates for their service.

According to the Gigabit Seattle website, “the more interest we have in your area, the higher priority your neighborhood will become.” They ask that all interested people sign up at their website to show interest in receiving this service to their neighborhoods.

Beacon Hill businesses, people honored by Seattle magazine

The big blue pizza oven at Seattle magazine’s “Best Pizza” restaurant, Bar del Corso. Photo by Dapper Lad Cycles in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool.

The December “Best of 2012” issue of Seattle magazine (unfortunately, not fully available online — you’ll have to buy a copy) gives Beacon Hill some city-wide love for our food, as well as taking note of a variety of Beacon Hill neighborhood “bests.”

Bar del Corso (3057 Beacon Ave. S.) was named “Best Pizza” in the city: “Tradition and creativity have never been so happy together as they are at Jerry Corso and Gina Tolentino Corso’s year-and-a-half-old Beacon Hill pizzeria.” The pizza crusts are singled out for mention: “simply perfection.”

In the “Best of the Neighborhoods” Beacon Hill category, Bar del Corso took another prize: “Best Restaurant.” “Best Bar” is El Quetzal (3209 Beacon Ave. S.), and the El Sabroso food wagon (corner of 16th Ave. S. and Roberto Maestas Festival Street) next to Beacon Hill Station earned accolades as “Best Takeout/Delivery.” The Station (2533 16th Ave. S.), just a few steps away, is “Best Coffee Shop,” while the Hilltop Red Apple (2701 Beacon Ave. S.) is, unsurprisingly, the “Best Grocery Store.” (The Promenade Red Apple at 23rd and Jackson likewise won that honor for the Central District.)

Not all the awards are food-related. The “Best Hair Salon” is Hair Skill Design (3226 Beacon Ave. S.), and the “Best Kids’ Activity” is the Beacon Mountain playground at Jefferson Park (3801 Beacon Ave. S.).

The “Best Live Music Venue” in the neighborhood is the Garden House (2336 15th Ave. S.), home of ROCKiT Community Arts events. Betty Jean Williamson, the current ROCKiT director, was named “Neighborhood Hero.”

Congratulations to all of the Beacon Hill neighbors, businesses, and organizations who have been honored. They all help make this neighborhood the great place to live that it is.

Wednesday: Las Posadas with food, music, piñatas, poetry, and Christmas lights

This Wednesday, December 12, is El Centro de la Raza’s community celebration of
El Día de la Vírgen de Guadalupe y Las Posadas, with holiday music, food, and the annual tree-lighting ceremony. All are invited and welcome, and the event is free for the whole family.

The event starts at 5:00 p.m. at nearby culinary establishments The Station, Travelers Thali House, and El Sabroso, who will serve hot holiday beverages such as cider, chocolate Mexicano, and Champurrado to enjoy. The Station will also have piñatas made by the Jefferson Community Center Teen Program. Inay’s and Baja Bistro will have samples of food including Filipino pastries and chicken soup. The restaurants will also feature performances by the Seattle Fandango Project and A La Carte.

See a map of all the neighborhood events here.

From 5:30 until 7:30, El Centro opens up with their own selection of free holiday food, a nativity scene, Las Posadas, and a visit from Santa Claus.

Starting at 7 p.m., The Station will remain open for the monthly Beacon Bards poetry event.

The Las Posadas event is sponsored by El Centro de la Raza and ROCKiT Community Arts with support from Beacon Hill Merchants’ Association, Verity Credit Union, Sysco, and El Quetzal.

Parking conflict leads to garbage dumping

This very unneighborly pile of trash was left on a neighbor’s car Friday night.

A neighbor wrote to tell us about a disturbing experience she had on Friday evening. I’ll let her tell the story (posted anonymously by her request):

Today I was arriving home from work shortly before 5pm, heading north on 14th Ave (near Atlantic). I noticed an available street parking spot near our house, on the right side of the street, so I slowed down and pulled into it. A car in the southbound lane was stopped with a left blinker on, presumably turning into a driveway. When I pulled into the parking spot, I could hear yelling from the guy in the turning car. I didn’t really figure out why until he turned into the driveway directly behind me, turned around and drove off. Apparently he wanted that parking spot and was trying to claim it. I recognized his car from seeing it parked in the vicinity, including when it was parked in a street spot for 5 straight days and eventually got towed.

Later on this evening, one of our neighbors knocked on our door to tell us they noticed someone had dumped trash onto the hood of my car. I went out to see for myself, and sure enough, there was gross garbage strewn all over my car — including compost waste and diapers. Lovely. I can only imagine he brought this garbage from his home, since our garbage pick up happened yesterday morning and most people’s cans aren’t on the sidewalks.

I attached a picture I took of my car with the garbage surprise. I’m hoping you post this anonymously, but wanted to send fair warning to my other neighbors about our sociopathic neighbor, and to tell others to keep an eye out for any foul play going on.

This is Beacon Hill, not Capitol Hill. Are any parking spots really that hard to come by?

Tonight: Spice Box celebrates 5 years of Skin Deep Dance

Tonight’s monthly Spice Box show put on by Skin Deep Dance is a special one to celebrate Skin Deep’s 5 year anniversary. The event runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at Skin Deep Dance Studio in the El Centro de la Raza building, 2524 16th Ave. S. #311.

Among the attractions in tonight’s show are art by Melissa Metesh and performances by ModRom Dance Collective, Maureen, Skin Deep Dance, Carly Aniluk, and Sirens of Serpentine (students of Leslie Rosen). The show will be emceed by Sarah O’Brien.

All ages are welcome, and the show is family-friendly. Admission is $10 per person, free for teens and under. Proceeds will benefit Skin Deep’s SEEDs (Self-esteem, Empowerment, and Education through Dance) program. Guests should enter El Centro through the north entrance; elevator access to the top floor is available. Parking is free.

Volunteers needed for free tax prep at El Centro de la Raza

Photo by John Morgan via Creative Commons/Flickr.

United Way of King County is currently recruiting volunteers to manage and operate free tax preparation sites in King County during the tax season in early 2013.

Volunteers will help clients complete their tax returns efficiently, to get all refunds and credits they are eligible for. Clients will also be able to sign up for public benefits, get help completing FAFSA (financial aid) applications, get their credit report, and learn about opportunities to open a savings account or invest in a savings bond.

Last year at El Centro de la Raza on North Beacon Hill, volunteers helped 604 households file returns, which resulted in $967,992 in refunds returned to the community.

United Way is still looking for volunteers at the El Centro de la Raza tax site. Each volunteer is asked to commit to training (provided by United Way) and a 4-hour weekly shift. Speakers of Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Somali, Korean, Amharic, Cambodian and Russian are encouraged to volunteer. For more information or to register,

For complete descriptions or to register, go here.

Two men arrested in North Beacon Hill robbery case

by Kiersten Throndsen, KOMO Communities
(Beacon Hill Blog news partners)

Police have arrested two men in connection with a violent robbery in a North Beacon Hill home last month.

The original incident happened on November 29, near 23rd Avenue South and South College Street. Police say three men knocked on the door of the home and asked the resident if they could buy some marijuana. The three suspects were reportedly allowed inside the home and that’s when things turned violent.

According to police, one of the suspects punched the resident in the face and pulled out a handgun, firing a shot. Another resident was home at the time and heard the shot. Police say he armed himself with a shotgun and came out of the back bedroom of the home. Gunfire was exchanged between the resident and the suspect, with one of the shots hitting the resident in the leg.

Police say all three suspects fled the home before officers arrived.

The 24-year-old victim was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Detectives arrested a 25-year-old man in Auburn on Monday, December 3. Two days later they tracked down a second suspect, believed to be the shooter, in Renton. Both men have been booked into the King County Jail for investigation of robbery. Officers are continuing to look for the third suspect.

Community invited to give input on new plaza

On Monday, December 10, at 6:30 p.m. El Centro de la Raza is hosting a community meeting about the public gathering spaces in the planned Plaza Roberto Maestas (PRM) development, to be built in El Centro’s south parking lot, just north of Beacon Hill Station.

Representatives of El Centro and Beacon Development group will present and discuss ideas for 10,000+ square feet plaza and the adjacent community center, including how the two spaces will work together on the site and with the surrounding community.

Monday’s meeting is the latest in a series of community meetings about the PRM development project. Community opinions and concerns stated at a meeting last June are viewable here.

The meeting is at El Centro de la Raza, 2524 16th Ave. S. There will be refreshments available, and translation will be offered. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to execasst@elcentrodelaraza.org to confirm attendance for planning purposes.

This preliminary design shows a possible plaza in the PRM development project.

Beacon Hill bicycle and pedestrian plan honored with award

Photo by Wendi Dunlap.

The Beacon Hill Family Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan, a project of Beacon BIKES and the City of Seattle, has won a 2012 VISION 2040 Award from the Puget Sound Regional Council. Vision 2040 Awards honor real-life examples of sustainable growth and improvements to quality of life in Puget Sound communities.

The Beacon Hill Family Bicycle and Pedestrian Circulation Plan has been designed as a ten-year plan to develop a network of pedestrian and bicycle routes to connect important and well-used locations with neighborhood greenways, cycle tracks, intersection improvements, and other solutions to increase safety for walkers and cyclists of all ages. Among the proposals is a crosswalk and “median refuge island” at South Spokane Street and Lafayette Avenue South, a location that leads directly into Jefferson Park from a neighborhood greenway but is currently very dangerous to cross.

Read more about the award here.

Zipcar car sharing service returns to Beacon Hill

Zipcar sign in Washington DC. Photo by NCinDC via Creative Commons/Flickr.
In December 2008 carless Beaconians received an unwelcome Christmas gift when Zipcar announced they were pulling out of Southeast Seattle. The car sharing service had kept a car in a spot at Red Apple for some months. The closing announcement they emailed to customers suggested unhelpfully that the Zipcar location at South Charles Street/Hiawatha Place (on the other side of I-90, near Dearborn, and about 1.4 miles away from the Red Apple site) would be a good alternative. (That location is no longer in service.)

This December, Zipcar is bringing a much more welcome gift: the return of a Zipcar location on Beacon Hill. Two vehicles will be located at the El Centro de la Raza parking lot at 16th Avenue South and Roberto Maestas Festival Street. The cars, a Nissan Sentra nicknamed “Seahawk” and a Kia Soul named “Shapeshifter,” will be available to Zipcar users for $8-10.25 per hour (depending on vehicle) or, in the case of the Sentra, $72 per day.

Along with the Beacon Hill location, there are two other Southeast Seattle Zipcar sites: Rainier Avenue South/South Angeline, and South Othello Street/MLK Jr Way South.