So where is Midtown?
The Seattle PI noted the trend of renaming the city’s neighborhoods. Midtown, West Edge, Gateway…where did they come from?
“I don’t know who they have in charge of that,” Jewell said. “They probably just have one dude sitting behind a desk who’s like, ‘Hmm, what should we call that?’ ”
Lately, that would be condo marketer extraordinaire Dean Jones, president of Realogics Inc., which represents dozens of developments. He popularized the Midtown moniker [see Escala Midtown] — at least among real estate agents — and has invented other would-be downtown micro-neighborhood names.
Midtown was intended to define the geographic area at the convergence of other distinct neighborhoods, such as the downtown retail district, Belltown, Pike Place Market and South Lake Union.
It may catch on, or not, but it’s a lot likelier that you’ll be able to find someone if you plan to meet at the Midtown Starbucks rather than the downtown Starbucks, he said.
And, several SCL readers called me out on the use of the Midtown moniker.
On the other hand…
Belltown Community Council President Zander Batchelder predicted that most micro-neighborhood names won’t stick around any longer than their brochures stay out of the recycling bin.
“They spend a lot of advertising on it, but I don’t think it’s going to take,” he said. “You have to have a majority consensus for that to take off, and the other people who already live here aren’t going to rename it just so (marketers) can make more money on the condos.”
