Downtown Seattle business owners say recovery hinges on city addressing public safety

Seattle is working overtime to bring back its downtown area. The loss of tourists and office workers over the past year and a half has left the area struggling. The city is investing $ 9 million in the revitalization of the downtown area, which includes the retail core as well as Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square.

Some city guides, including Mayor Jenny Durkan, say restoring the area is vital as it accounts for the bulk of the city’s tax revenue. However, some business owners are skeptical of Seattle’s commitment, saying that fundamental issues like public safety need to be addressed.

The view from below

At The London Plane restaurant, on the street level of a brick building from the 1920s in Pioneer Square, business partners Katherine Anderson and Yasuaki Saito say it’s been a hard year and a half and they are exhausted. Anderson says they only survived because of a government paycheck protection program loan.

Initially, when the pandemic forced everything to shut down, they prepared meals and delivered them to health workers. Then, when it became clear there wasn’t going to be another personal meal anytime soon, they turned to a grocery store and a take-away restaurant. Now they have switched back to full service al fresco dining.

They say the economic challenges have been enormous with office workers nearby and tourists mostly gone. However, their biggest frustration is that they believe the city is not responding to another outcome of the pandemic: an overwhelming number of people on the streets affected by homelessness and mental illness.

“We all got used to it somehow. Like the piles of rubbish and the tents – my only question is what is the plan? And what I hear from the city council is that we don’t want to trample on people’s rights. That also seems like a non-solution, “said Anderson.

“Isn’t there a solution that is not to trample on people’s rights and to take care of people?” Saito added.

As a small business owner, you feel you are at the forefront of the crisis. Almost every day they have customers dining at tables outside that are harassed by people in crisis. Sometimes you and your staff are able to defuse situations; sometimes they are not. And, Saito said, when they call for help, they often don’t get a timely answer.

“The responsibility for dealing with these issues almost always rests with the small business owner and the first floor renter when the problem is much bigger than any of us can handle individually,” Saito said.

The view from above

The offices of the City’s Director of Economic Development are located on the 56th floor of Seattle’s Municipal Tower. From here Pamela Banks has a breathtaking view of the water, the ferries and the mountains.

She says she understands the concerns of small businesses and what they often do in their storefronts – everything from tents to trash to drug trafficking. But, Banks said, the reality is that other cities have worse problems than Seattle when it comes to crime and security.

“I hear the stories of small business owners saying the poop and vomit, and that’s real to them, so we have to deal with that. That is real. But when it comes to violent crime across the country, we’re damned lucky and we have to do a better job getting the word out, ”Banks said.

Banks, who is responsible for downtown revitalization, said there’s plenty to look forward to on this front, including low-interest loans for black and brown businesses and many “welcome back downtown” events scheduled for this summer.

“We’re going to do things in the aquarium and the water, and Pioneer Square is going to do some really cool things,” she said.

Speaking at a press conference in June at Pike Place Market, Mayor Jenny Durkan said she understood the feeling of small business owners feeling abandoned during the pandemic.

But at a press conference at Pike Place Market, she said it had been a tough year “for everyone” and “the pandemic was bigger than any of us”. She said the millions the city is spending to bring the city center back is evidence that it is committed to supporting businesses in the city center, including cultural and arts organizations that are also a big part of what attracts people to the city center.

Will people return?

Everyone agrees that large numbers of office workers and tourists must return for the inner city to flourish again.

Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Association, said pedestrian traffic along with hotel occupancy decreased dramatically during the pandemic and has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels. He said it resulted in hundreds of small businesses closing downtown. Some new ones have opened, but boarded up shop windows are still visible.

Scholes, whose organization is providing $ 3 million in rebuilding efforts, said people have a choice when deciding where to hold a meeting or go on vacation, and Seattle is in competition with other cities on the west coast. He said he feared Seattle’s image has been damaged by vandalism and graffiti, which has been a constant downtown over the past year as well.

He said what happened on President Joe Biden’s inauguration day was an example of this.

“We had more than a dozen people come down and break the original Starbucks windows. There was an attack and other damage, and she ran the Today show the next morning. It’s not looking good for Seattle, ”said Scholes. The city’s failure to firmly condemn the action was an “unenforced mistake”.

The reopening

In the past few weeks, as Washington state and Seattle reopened, there has been a visible effort by the city to address the issues raised by small business owners. The leaders announced the removal of an entire block of tents on Third Avenue downtown after people in the tents were relocated to hotel rooms.

Whatever the ultimate recovery, everyone agrees that small businesses need to be an integral part of it.

When I ask The London Plane business partners Anderson and Saito about the city’s plans for a recovery, they say they will wait and see that they have seen “sweeping plans” in the past that have not been implemented.