Columbia City station
Columbia City station is a light rail station located in Seattle, Washington. It is situated between the Othello and Mount Baker stations on the 1 Line, which runs from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport to Downtown Seattle and the University of Washington as part of the Link light rail system. The station consists of two at-grade side platforms between South Alaska Street and South Edmunds Street in the median of Martin Luther King Jr. Way South in the Columbia City neighborhood, part of Seattle's Rainier Valley. The station opened on July 18, 2009. Trains serve the station twenty hours a day on most days; the headway between trains is six minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. Columbia City station is also served by two King County Metro bus routes that connect it to Mount Baker, Renton and West Seattle. Location Columbia City station is located in the median of Martin Luther King Jr. Way between Alaska and Edmunds streets in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle's Rainier Valley. It is approximately six blocks west of the neighborhood's central business district and designated historic district, centered on Rainier Avenue. The station is located downhill from Cheasty Boulevard South, a preserved Olmsted boulevard and city landmark running along the east edge of Beacon Hill; other parks in the area include Genesee Park to the east of the Columbia City business district, Columbia Park, the Rainier Playfield, and Hitt's Hill Park. Transit-oriented development The area surrounding Columbia City station consists primarily of single-family detached homes with some multi-family units, including some low-income housing at the Seattle Housing Authority's Rainier Vista public housing development. It is noted as one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Seattle metropolitan area, with 75 percent of its 5,667 residents identifying as part of a racial minority; the neighborhood also has 1,502 jobs located within a half-mile () of the station. Height limits in the area range from adjacent to the station to along Rainier Avenue. The construction of the light rail station has triggered interest in transit-oriented development by private developers in proximity to Columbia City station. New market rate apartments, the first in four decades for the neighborhood, were opened by Harbor Urban in 2012. The Zion Preparatory Academy sold its campus to developers in 2009 for $5 million; the site was redeveloped into a six-building complex with 244 apartments by The Wolff Company in 2015. History Columbia City was established in 1891 as a streetcar suburb by J. K. Edmiston, the owner of the Rainier Avenue Electric Railway. Edmiston had built the line and a lumber mill on the site of old-growth forests to aid in the rebuilding of Downtown Seattle after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. The site was later named "Columbia" and plotted for homes, and incorporated in 1893 as "Columbia City". The city was annexed by the city of Seattle in 1907 after Edmiston sold the railway and left the fledgling town, who felt their tax base was