Local

Melrose businesses say construction hurting them

SEATTLE, Wash. — Russell Flint, owner of Rain Shadow Meats in the Melrose Market, says business at his butcher shop is down nearly 30 percent. 

 2012, he said, "was our best year to date. Since then, it's gone down." 
 
 He blames the construction taking place throughout Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.


"It's just mainly the parking closures and the street closures," Flint said. "The list that I got from SDOT is crazy."


In 2013, Flint says there were 256 street parking closures on Melrose. Another local business, Calf and Kid, was forced to relocate a couple months ago.
 
 In March, Melrose business owners penned a letter to city officials.
 
"Primarily, we were angry," said Anna Wallace, owner of Seattle Seltzer. 
 
That anger, she says, was prompted by the city's seeming obliviousness to how the boom in construction is affecting small businesses in nearly every neighborhood.


"You're looking at 10th Avenue. You're looking at 23rd Avenue. You're looking at the U-District," she said.  "With all these construction boom impacts, someone has to know how to help."


But Marc Papineau, co-owner of Bar Ferd'nand, sees a silver lining.
 
"I think in the long run, all this is good," Papineau said. "If it's bringing people into the neighborhood, which it definitely has."
 
Wallace says officials have not responded to their letter. The business owners plan to send another to city leaders, including Mayor Ed Murray, soon.

They hope the second letter will finally get the attention she says these businesses sorely need.