Extra companies flee Seattle due to crime and violence

At least 160 companies have left the city since March last year.

EDMONDS, Wash – TR International, a global chemical distributor, is moving from its more than two decades old home in downtown Seattle and crossing the border to neighboring Edmonds.

The company is one of at least 160 companies to leave Seattle since last March.

While some of the companies that left Seattle were due to the coronavirus pandemic, business leaders have stated that much of this is due to a feeling that no one is doing business in Seattle and the lack of accountability on the part of city guides .

Megan Gluth-Bohan, CEO of TR International, said the decision to leave the company was an easy one. She cited ongoing violence, rampant homelessness and drug use.

“The city center was originally a vibrant place. We got embarrassed over time,” she said.

Gluth-Bohan said the company’s predominantly female employees just didn’t feel safe downtown.

“We chased an employee into a Starbucks,” said Gluth-Bohan. “Business associates who came to meetings dodged human feces and homeless people on the sidewalk. We had a clerk who paid to park after work. She had her driver’s side window down and was working at the parking meter, and someone was trying to get into her To get in the car. “

“We need to tackle this emergency and public health crisis on our streets now,” said Jon Scholes, CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association.

Scholes said the city needs to start tracking down rioters and street criminals who have made the city center increasingly uninhabitable in recent years.

He pointed to the deafening silence of city officials after a destructive inauguration day march through Seattle that damaged several storefronts. Three people were arrested.

“Seattle was on the Today Show and the whole nation heard the silence of our elected leaders. The rioters who came down and broke things got the last word,” Scholes said. “They’ll keep coming back. It’s going to slow the recovery, the reopening of small businesses, employers bringing back office jobs. It’s just unacceptable. We have to send a much clearer message to the city.”

“The problem in Seattle has become aggressive,” said Gluth-Bohan. “It’s everywhere and there doesn’t seem to be any effort to contain, stop, or slow it down.”

Meanwhile, TR International has just saved $ 4 million on its new Edmonds headquarters and is pumping an additional $ 500,000 into the local economy for renovations.

And Megan Gluth-Bohan doesn’t look back.

“I was looking out the window the other day and there were four deer walking by. I thought there was a difference, right there.”