Capitol Hill park has new name: Summit Slope Park

A Capitol Hill park that was to be named after Seattle's sister city Perugia, Italy — a name that was quickly withdrawn — now has a new name: Summit Slope Park.

In 2009, the Seattle Parks Department announced that the park at the northeast corner of East John Street and Summit Avenue East would be named Perugia Park, but just a day later, the city backpedaled because of the Amanda Knox murder case in Perugia, Italy.

In December 2009, an Italian jury convicted Knox, a Seattle resident, of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in a cottage the two shared in Perugia. The case is now under appeal.

At the time the name Perugia Park was withdrawn, former Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher said that due to community concerns about the name, coming on the heels of the guilty verdict in the Knox case, naming of the park Perugia was being temporarily shelved.

The Parks Department announced Thursday that the park, which had been known as the John and Summit Park, would be called Summit Slope Park because the park has a naturally terraced slope.

The park department's naming committee unanimously recommended the new name. The quarter-acre park was acquired in 2007 as part of the 2000 Pro Parks Levy and money from King County. Developing it into a park was completed last fall.

The park contains a P-Patch, which is named the Unpaving Paradise P-Patch to reflect that the site used to be a parking lot.

Dewey Potter, spokeswoman for the Parks Department, said the city still plans to honor the sister-city relationship with Perugia in a future city park, perhaps with a piece of artwork or a plaque. The park in Perugia that honors Seattle is named Sister Orca Park in recognition of Seattle's rich Native American and marine heritage.

Potter said the name Sister Orca could be incorporated in a Seattle park.

Six other city parks bear the names of Seattle's sister cities. Seattle has sister-city relationships with 21 cities. Perugia was named a sister city in 1991.

Seattle's first sister city was Kobe, Japan, established in 1957, and one park, Kobe Terrace, in the Chinatown International District, is named after that city.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com