Light rail strains small businesses

Sound Transit's light-rail construction along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South is straining many small businesses that line the thoroughfare.

A few have shut down. More have moved. Some are in limbo. Most are operating, but their sales have dropped, sometimes dramatically.

"What concerns us greatly is, this is after one-third of the duration" of construction, said Robert Mohn, vice president of the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund, established by Sound Transit, King County and the city to help Southeast Seattle cope with light rail.

Sound Transit broke ground on the 14-mile line from downtown Seattle to Tukwila in late 2003. Completion is scheduled for mid-2009. The tracks will run down the median of MLK, through of one of the most diverse and poorest neighborhoods in Seattle.

Mohn and Jaime Garcia, the community-development fund's executive director, told the Sound Transit board yesterday that:

• 97 of 274 eligible businesses along MLK have received "business-interruption" grants from the fund; applications from 75 more are in the pipeline.

• Businesses receiving grants reported a median drop in sales of 36 percent.

• 42 percent of those businesses said their sales had declined 50 percent or more.

• Traffic on MLK — many merchants' lifeblood — is down more than 40 percent.

Nearly three-fourths of the affected businesses are owned by nonwhites, primarily Asians.

David Chen, co-owner of King Plaza shopping center at MLK and South Myrtle Street, said he has lost several tenants — an eye doctor, a lawyer, a clothing store, a beauty school — because of light-rail construction.

He said he had to offer financial concessions to keep a grocer from closing temporarily while Myrtle Street, King Plaza's principal access, shut down for several weeks. Even so, the grocer ended up throwing away many perishables.

"You never know when a small business can't take this anymore," said Chen, who also serves as secretary of the community-development fund's board. But he also said most of his tenants are sticking it out because they believe MLK will be better when Sound Transit's work is finished.

Sound Transit officials acknowledged they could do more to help.

"I think we're getting better, and we're going to continue to get better," said Joni Earl, the agency's chief executive.

She said Sound Transit soon will begin subsidizing discounts for customers to shop at MLK businesses.

Garcia said the community-development fund is considering raising the cap on its business-interruption grants from $30,000 to $50,000 for businesses suffering what he called "exceptional" impacts: construction in front of their stores for six months or more, for instance.

He and Chen also called for better communication with Sound Transit's contractors. Chen said he was given little notice of the Myrtle Street closure, although it was delayed at his request to give him time to talk to his tenants. He said he was told the street would be closed three to five weeks, but it was closed seven.

Unanticipated construction difficulties could be contributing to such problems, said Sound Transit board Chairman John Ladenburg. For instance, he said, contractors expected to encounter 22 hazardous-materials sites but instead found 64.

The community-development fund has $50 million from the city, county and Sound Transit to help businesses through construction and support new rail-oriented development.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com