From Pontedera:
Seattle’s Rainier Valley has been, and continues to be, the first home for many immigrant families. In the early part of the 20th Century a wave of Italian immigrants began to settle in the valley where many had small farms or businesses that catered to the Italian immigrant community. Soon the Rainier Valley bore the nickname Garlic Gulch. HomeSight, with its office in the Rainier Valley community of Columbia City, has been helping moderate-income families, many of them recent immigrants, blue collar and service workers, purchase their first home. In finding a name for their newest development they settled on The Pontedera.
The name is taken from a city in the Tuscany region of Italy. Unlike the more famous hill towns of Tuscany, most tourists bypass Pontedera, an industrial hub of the region, nestled between the Era and Arno rivers. Pontedera is a working city filled with industrious laborers and craftsmen, some of whom work in the Piaggio factory which has been producing the iconic Vespa for over sixty years.
Just as the Vespa, developed as affordable transportation for the working class, became known worldwide for its simplicity, reliability and style, HomeSight strives to be the developer known for high quality, attractive homes affordable to the working class family. In naming their newest development at the crossroads of the Rainier Valley and Downtown Seattle The Pontedera, they pay homage to the area's past and celebrate the opportunities affordable housing brings to working families who are the foundation on which Seattle is built.
