Sound Transit puts $54 Billion Light-Rail Plan on Ballot

Seattle Times | Daniel Beekman | June 23

“Bold. Visionary. Historic. Courageous. Ambitious. Those were some of the adjectives Sound Transit board members used Thursday as they voted unanimously to put a massive expansion before Puget Sound voters on the November ballot. The plan is Sound Transit 3, a $54 billion, 25-year program to extend light rail and other services across the region using federal grants and three tax increases. It would add 62 miles of light rail with stations serving 37 new areas, growing the existing system to 116 miles between Tacoma, Seattle, Everett and the Eastside.” Read more.

Report: Downtown Seattle Growth Continues to be Staggering

Seattle PI | Daniel Demay | June 21

“The Downtown Seattle Association’s Mid-Year Development Guide found that– on average — one construction project has broken ground every week since the beginning of the year. Sixty-five buildings are under construction right now, according to the report. That’s the most buildings at one time since the DSA began tracking it in 2005. “It’s easy to see when you just walk around downtown,” said James Sido of the DSA. “The cranes tell quite the story when you walk around down here.”” Read more.

Seattle Tech Community Reaches Out to Homeless

King 5 News | Ryan Takeo | June 21

“About a dozen Seattle tech executives and workers spent Monday night reaching out to the homeless. They know better than most the relationship between the tech and homeless communities is complicated. “The Seattle tech community has a really large responsibility to help with a lot of social issues,” said Rebekah Bastian, who is Vice President of Product at Zillow. “Especially in the housing space because a lot of the housing affordability crisis that we’re seeing in Seattle is caused by tech company growth.” Read more.

NewSpace 2016 Makes Seattle the Space Industry’s Center of the Universe This Week

GeekWire | Alan Boyle | June 20

“There’s a neighborhood in Seattle that jokingly calls itself “the center of the universe,” but this week the title is no joke – at least when it comes to the entrepreneurial side of the space industry. The Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2016 conference is making it so. The annual conference has been traditionally been held in California’s Silicon Valley. But from now on, the Space Frontier Foundation plans to bring the show to Seattle every other year. “If you guys mess it up, well, we’ll never come back,” Jeff Feige, the foundation’s chairman, told a group of Seattle space enthusiasts during a recent preview of the meeting.” Read more.

How Seattle Became ‘Amazontown’ and What That Means for the Future of the City

Puget Sound Business Journal | Rachel Nielsen | June 17

“When Teresa Elizabeth was growing up in the Seattle area in the 1980s and 1990s, her parents warned her to avoid South Lake Union…Her story is a sign of how Seattle-based Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), in tandem with developer Vulcan Real Estate, has transformed South Lake Union. Amazon’s imprint on Seattle as a whole is no less impressive: It employs more than 20,000 people in the city and occupies about 15 percent of the city’s office real estate. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement over Amazon’s exponential growth from an online bookseller in the 1990s to a tech and online retail powerhouse it is today.” Read more.

6 Seattle-Area Leaders Named Entrepreneur of the Year

Seattle Times | Rachel Lerman | June 20

“Ernst & Young announced the winners of its annual Entrepreneur of the Year award in the Pacific Northwest region, calling out six executives from the Seattle area and two from Portland. The program honors business people who are involved in the community and running successful companies. Judges whittled down a large pool of applicants, first to a group of entrepreneurs from 21 companies, and then to eight winners, announced Friday…The honorees will move on to be considered by Ernst & Young at a national level, where winners will be announced in November.” Read more.