Wallingford Beautification is a collaborative neighborhood group that formed in 2023 with the goal of beautifying Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood through small team projects. Historic Wallingford sponsors the group and assists in fundraising.
Utility Box Art Project
In 2024, the Wallingford Beautification team focused on beautifying several utility boxes along Wallingford’s busy 45th Street corridor. With input from community surveys and contributions from Historic Wallingford, the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce, the Wallingford Community Council, and the community, the team raised enough matching funds to apply for Small Sparks funding through the City of Seattle. In July 2024, the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods awarded the project full funding, which allowed us to move forward in our search for artists.
Artist Selection
The Wallingford Beautification team selected three artists from over 30 applicants to help transform utility boxes along N 45th Street. The artists were Julisha Kim, Jen Vickers, and Alex Nason. Working with a similar color palette based on Craftsman-style houses, they each created original artwork that was digitized into vinyl wraps for signal boxes at Wallingford, Densmore, and Meridian Avenues.
Design
We asked the artists for their designs to incorporate or take inspiration from historic photographs capturing the identity of Wallingford. Once the site of Native American activity along the north shore of Lake Union, Wallingford developed into a thriving streetcar suburb by 1920. Since then, it has been home to various residents who have shaped the neighborhood. Our goal for the artwork on these utility boxes is to connect the past with the present and encourage placemaking among Wallingford’s current residents. Learn more about the neighborhood’s history by visiting our Wallingford-Meridian Streetcar Historic District webpage.
Any medium was allowed. However, the final design needed to be digitized into a high-resolution scaled vector image. If needed, we offered to assist with this process.
The final design needed to satisfy the City of Seattle Dept of Public Transportation and SDOT guidelines and was subject to approval by the vinyl wrap vendor.
Vinyl Wrap Production
Our vendor SuperGraphics, printed the three utility box wraps in early December. Check out some pictures and videos below of the wraps being printed.
Celebration!
The vinyl wraps were installed the week of December 9. On December 14, we held a public celebration of the new artwork at the Wallingford Center that featured family-friendly activities and light refreshments provided by Mighty-O Donuts. Several community members and project artists Alex Nason and Jen Vickers joined us for the celebration!
Thank you to all of our hard-working volunteers, generous donors and sponsors, SuperGraphics and City of Seattle staff, and 4Culture and the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods for their support!
Watch this space or our social media accounts for project updates or sign up to receive our e-newsletter!
Neighborhood Clean-Ups
Each spring and fall the team assists in hosting neighborhood cleanups, with support from the City of Seattle. The clean-ups began under the leadership of Colleen Kurke in 2022. Will Vagle and Michael Dewar organized the most recent clean-up on November 2, 2024, where several friends and neighbors met at the Wallingford Center to beautify Wallingford.
The next clean-up is planned for Earth Day, 2025. Stay tuned for more information!
Your gift to this fund supports activities related to neighborhood beautification, such as utility box art, cleanup events, and more!
Funding for the Utility Box Art Project has been provided by the Neighborhood Matching Fund from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.