By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Community has a little bit of everything

John Keister, host of KING-TV's half-hour comedy show "Almost Live!", grew up near Seward Park and lives at Pritchard Beach. The neighborhood, Keister says, "has the best and worst homes in Seattle. You have gigantic estates next to the projects. It's a real weird, weird area."

Keister's street is a collection of comfortable homes, some fronting Lake Washington with stunning lake views of Mercer Island, the Eastside and Cascades.

Keister says his immediate neighborhood is a safe place for his three children to play, but that's not the case several blocks to the east, near Rainier Avenue South.

"We live on a nice street, but I've lived here and I know what it is like. I don't feel I have an unrealistic view of it, good or bad," says Keister, a graduate of nearby Franklin High School. "I believe I have a correct level of concern."

Because of its reputation and off-the-beaten path location, Keister says Rainier Beach is "an area the rest of the city never goes to."

The rest of the city might not know about the 200-year-old cedar trees, babbling brooks, equestrian trails, marinas and waterfront parks, condos and a mile of spectacular Lake Washington shoreline.

Rainier Beach remains largely undiscovered, a sleepy hollow minutes from downtown and even closer to Renton. Home prices are generally lower there than in the rest of the city, and it even has vacant commercial and residential lots.

"Rainier Beach has been given kind of a bad rap, but if you spent some time down here you would enjoy it," says James Luster, a PTA volunteer and co-chairman of the new Rainier Beach neighborhood planning group. "It's quiet, there is not a lot of crime and it's beautiful."

Continued:

• Off the beaten path, rejuvenation takes shape
• Residents unhapppy with focus on negative
• Planners hope to dress up neighborhood
• Diverse population makes for a unique feel