'Redmond' is a city in
King County,
Washington,
USA. It is situated on the eastern edge of the
Seattle urban area, in what is known as the
Eastside. In
2003 the
Census Bureau estimated the city population was 46,391. Redmond is best known as the home of
Microsoft (for which "Redmond" has become a
metonym) and
Nintendo of America. With an annual bike race on city streets and the state's only
velodrome, Redmond is also known as "the bicycle capital of the Northwest." Despite this, the city is
suburban in character, with its main form of transportation being the automobile. Redmond has a historic downtown with many personally owned businesses which is connected to the modern downtown Redmond. The city has many parks and is known for its woods.
Due to its large population of highly paid tech workers, especially those of
Microsoft, Redmond is known for its affluence. Based on
per capita income, one of the more reliable measures of affluence, Redmond ranks 20th of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked.
History
Native Americans had settled in the Redmond area 3,000 years ago, and the first European settlers arrived in the 1870s.
Luke McRedmond filed a
Homestead Act claim for land next to the
Sammamish Slough on
September 9,
1870, and the following year
Warren Perrigo took up land adjacent to him. The rivers and streams had so many
salmon that the settlement was initially named Salmonberg. More settlers came, and with the establishment of the first
post office in
1881, the name of the community was changed to Melrose. The new name was taken from the Perrigos' successful inn, Melrose House, which upset McRedmond. After becoming
postmaster, he successfully petitioned to have the name changed to Redmond in
1883.
The abundant forests and fish of Redmond provided jobs for loggers and fishermen and with those jobs came demand for goods and services, bringing in merchants. The
logging industry expanded significantly with the building of a
railroad through town. The first
plat for Redmond was filed on
May 11,
1891, encompassing much of the area now known as downtown. After reaching the necessary population of 300, Redmond was incorporated on
December 31,
1912.
Redmond faced an economic downturn in the 1920s.
Prohibition forced saloons to close, cutting off a large portion of the city's tax base. The forests were dwindling after heavy logging, causing
lumber mills to shut down. Fortunately, the deforested land was suitable for
farming. Agriculture became Redmond's primary business, keeping residents fed during the
Great Depression. When the U.S. entered
World War II,
shipyard jobs and other wartime work came to Redmond.
After the war, Redmond's growth began in earnest. The city grew over thirty times larger in area through
annexations between
1951 and
1967. The completion of the
Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across
Lake Washington in
1963 allowed Redmond to flourish as a suburb of Seattle. In
1978, the
U.S. Census Bureau proclaimed Redmond the fastest growing city in the state. Many technology companies made the city their home, and the increasing population demanded more retail shops. Redmond underwent a commercial boom during the 1990s, culminating in
1997 with the opening of Redmond Town Center, a major regional shopping center on the site of a long-defunct golf course. In recent years the city has been experiencing growing pains as a result of its strong growth, mostly in the areas of urban sprawl and traffic congestion. During rush hour it can take upwards of 2 hours to travel from the beginning of SR520 at Avondale Rd. to
Downtown Seattle a mere 18 miles (29 km) away. These problems are being mitigated by the expansion of SR520 and the
Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, as well as eventual light rail service from Seattle to Redmond during the second phase of
Sound Transit.
Geography
Bicycle capital of the Northwest
Redmond is bordered by
Kirkland to the west,
Bellevue to the southwest, and
Sammamish to the southeast. Unincorporated King County lies to the north and east. The city is situated on the north end of
Lake Sammamish, with the
Sammamish River running through its center.
Redmond is located at ().
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 42.9
km² (16.6
mi²). 41.2 km² (15.9 mi²) of it is land and 1.7 km² (0.7 mi²) of it (4.05%) is water.
Government and politics
Redmond has a non-partisan
mayor-council form of government, with the mayor and seven council members elected at large for staggered four-year terms. The current mayor,
Rosemarie Ives, has been in office since
1992. The city council and Mayor Ives have clashed over the years and, though the parties involved deny any connection, the city council authorized a ballot measure in
2003 that would have changed Redmond to a
council-manager government. However, it was rejected, receiving less than 30% of the vote.
===Current
Mayor
★ Rosemarie Ives (fourth consecutive term) of Education Hill
Current
City Council Members
(Numbers are position numbers)
# John Marchione (first term) of Education Hill
# John P. "Pat" Vaché (third non-consecutive term, Vice President of the Council) of Education Hill
# ''Vacant Position'' (Edward John Resha III of Education Hill resigned, effective immediately, at the 8/21/2007 council meeting)
# Kimberly Allen (first term) of Education Hill
# Richard Cole (fifth consecutive term) of Education Hill
# Nancy McCormick (sixth consecutive term, President of the Council) of Overlake
# Jim Robinson (fourth consecutive term) of Grass Lawn
Current
Planning Commission Members===
★ Susan Petitpas (Chair) of Education Hill
★ Suzanne Querry (Vice Chair) of East Redmond
★ Korby Parnell of Downtown Redmond
★ Charlie McCarthy of Viewpoint (Overlake)
★ Tom Hinman of Downtown Redmond
★ Martin E. Snodgrass (Open Position) of North Redmond
★ Tanika Kumar (Open Position) of Downtown Redmond
Redmond is also home to the
Northwest Progressive Institute, a local think tank.
Candidates for 2007 election
★ Mayor
★
★ John Marchione (current councilmember)
Campaign web site
★
★ Jim Robinson (current councilmember)
Campaign web site
★
★ ''Note: Holly Plackett (former councilmember) lost in the primary, from which only two candidates advance to the general election.''
Campaign web site
★
★ ''Note: Since Marchione and Robinson's council seats are up for election, they must give up their seats in order to run for Mayor.''
★ Council seats (at large, but candidates must declare for a particular position)
★
★
Celine McKeon - ''position one'' (withdrawn)
★
★ Hank Myers - ''position one''
★
★ Brian Conlin - ''position three''
Campaign web site
★
★ Dayle "Hank" Margeson - ''position three''
★
★ Michallea Schuelke - ''position five''
★
★ Richard Cole (incumbent) - ''position five''
★
★ Brian Seitz - ''position seven''
Campaign web site
★
★ David Carson - ''position seven''
Education
Redmond is part of the
Lake Washington School District, which also encompasses
Kirkland and parts of
Sammamish and
Woodinville. The
public schools in Redmond include nine elementary schools, three junior high schools, and
Redmond High School. Three
private schools offer secondary education:
the Overlake School (secular),
the Bear Creek School (Christian - primary and secondary), and the Conservatory High School (for
performing arts students).
The English Hill neighborhood in North Redmond (unincorporated King County) is served by the
Northshore School District and Sunrise Elementary.
DigiPen Institute of Technology (a college for students in the field of
video game development) and the secondary campus of
Lake Washington Technical College are also located in Redmond.
The city is home to Redmond Regional Library, the second-largest library in the
King County Library System.
Economy
Microsoft campus entrance
A number of companies in the
high-tech industry are based in Redmond. The largest employer in the city by far is
Microsoft Corporation, which moved its headquarters to Redmond in
1986. Currently Microsoft has over 30,000 full-time workers and more than 8 million square feet (750,000 square meters) of office space in the
Seattle area
Eastside region, primarily in Redmond and
Issaquah. Further signs of growth include:
★ In
January 2006, Microsoft announced
[1] the purchase of
Safeco's Redmond campus. (Formerly one of Redmond's major employers, Safeco began consolidating its offices in Seattle's
University District in 2005.)
★ In
February 2006, Microsoft announced that it intends to expand its Redmond campus by another 1.1 million square feet at a cost of $1 billion and has said that this will create space for between 7,000 and 15,000 new employees over the next three years.
[2]
This is very optimistic news for Redmond and the
Eastside, which will gain many new residents as a direct result. This also shows that while the general technology industry slows, Redmond's economy, alongside that of
Puget Sound, continues to expand rapidly.
Other companies with headquarters in Redmond include
Nintendo of America,
Concur,
Web Marketing Source,
Captures.com,
Data I/O Corporation,
Genie Industries, and
Eddie Bauer.
★
Concur has been named to the
Seattle Times NW 100 ranked at #4,
June 18 2007. To rise to the top of The Seattle Times' rankings, companies must excel over a two-year span on four performance measurements: return on equity, stock-price appreciation, sales per employee and operating income.
[1]
★
Concur is also number 28 on
Business 2.0's 100 Fastest-growing tech companies list for 2007
[2] and number 79 on
BusinessWeek's "top 100 small companies to watch".
[3]
Unlike
Bellevue and other neighboring cities, the City of Redmond does not have a Business & Occupation tax on income.
[3] However, to help offset the costs of road improvements for businesses, a business license fee of $55 per employee was approved in 1996. As of
2007, the fee is $85 per employee.
[4]
Parks and recreation
Climbing rock in Marymoor Park
Redmond has 23 developed public parks, totaling over a thousand acres (4 km²). Many of these are neighborhood parks with picnic tables and sports fields or courts. The largest park within the city is not owned by the city -- it is King County's 560 acre (2.3 km²)
Marymoor Park, one of the most popular in King County. It features a
climbing rock, a
model airplane flying field, a large off-leash
dog park, an outdoor theater, and a
velodrome.
The city also offers 17 miles of developed trails for hiking, bicycling, and horseback riding. The
Sammamish River Trail connects to the
Burke-Gilman Trail in
Bothell and can be followed all the way to Seattle's
Ballard neighborhood.
In 2004, Redmond North
Little League won the Northwest region and participated in the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, PA. With Redmond North claiming the Northwest, it is the third team from
Washington to claim the Northwest since its inception in 2001. Previous Washington champions were
Bainbridge Island (2001),
Richland (2003).
Culture
Redmond Derby Days is an annual community festival held every July. It began as a race around
Lake Sammamish called the Redmond Bicycle Derby in
1939, and since then has become a multi-day event including a bicycle
criterium, parade, carnival, and entertainment stage.
Performing arts in Redmond include the Eastside Symphony, the SecondStory Repertory theater company, and the Washington Academy of Performing Arts. Redmond has an extensive collection of high quality outdoor sculptures throughout its streets and parks, a good number of which are part of a rotating sculpture exhibition.
The Old Redmond Firehouse is a center for local teens. It has become a hub in the thriving Eastside independent music scene.
The Concerts at Marymoor is an annual summer series of concerts held at the amphitheater in Marymoor Park. The venue has been host to artists as diverse as Norah Jones, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Rob Thomas. The series is fast becoming one of the most popular in Western Washington.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 45,256 people, 19,102 households, and 11,346 families residing in the city. The
population density was 1,099.7/km² (2,848.8/mi²). There were 20,248 housing units at an average density of 492.0/km² (1,274.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 79.26%
White, 1.52%
African American, 0.45%
Native American, 13.02%
Asian, 0.18%
Pacific Islander, 2.46% from
other races, and 3.11% from two or more races.
Hispanic or
Latino of any race were 5.61% of the population.
There were 19,102 households out of which 28.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.9% were
married couples living together, 7.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.6% were non-families. 30.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.95.
In the city the population was spread out with 21.5% under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 37.9% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64, and 9.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 100.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.5 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $66,735, and the median income for a family was $78,430. Males had a median income of $58,112 versus $37,200 for females. The
per capita income for the city was $36,233. About 3.3% of families and 5.3% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 6.3% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.
Real estate
In 2004 nearly 1,800 properties sold in the City of Redmond, and the following year home values went up nearly 18%.
Redmond is home to the largest church in the state,
Overlake Christian Church. The so-called
megachurch moved to the city in
1997 after outgrowing its
Kirkland location. Logistical problems with traffic on Willows Road have arisen due to the number of attendees.
Famous residents
★
Carrie Brownstein, guitarist and vocalist for
Sleater-Kinney
★
Blake Lewis,
American Idol finalist
★ Caitlin Snaring,
National Geographic Bee winner (national level)
★
Steve Wiebe, current
Donkey Kong record holder
References
★ Malowney, Georgeann (2002). ''Redmond (Images of America: Washington).'' Chicago: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-2071-3.
★ Way, Nancy (1989). ''Our Town Redmond.'' Redmond, Washington: Marymoor Museum. ISBN 0-9624587-2-4.
★
Ngo-Viet, Nam Son (2002). The Integration of the Suburban Shopping Center with its Surroundings: Redmond Town Center. Seattle: University of Washington.
External links
★
City of Redmond Home
★
Redmond - Thumbnail History
★
Marymoor Velodrome
★ Nearby hiking trails on
Hikipedia
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