From the Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2004 issue

News

Free Market Economy

Market Merchants Assail Nonprofits

by Amy Jenniges

In June, a frustrated Pike Place Market business owner penned an open letter to the landmark's Historic Commission, complaining that one of the market's prominent shops--a storefront next to the Western Avenue stairclimb--had been empty for a year and a half. "What remains is an eyesore," the letter reads. "I think we could easily see another year go by before the space is occupied."

Sure, the empty space is eventually slated to become a new wing for the Pike Market Child Care Center & Preschool, one of the market's handful of nonprofit organizations dedicated to serving low-income downtown residents--especially people who live in and around the bustling Seattle landmark, with its dozens of mom-and-pop fruit stands, arts and crafts galleries, and kitschy tourist traps. But merchants worry that the vacant storefront will be empty for at least another year, as the daycare center irons out its plans. They argue that catering to nonprofits this way is not good for the market, which is supposed to be a vibrant, small-business-oriented community. Indeed, beyond the temporarily empty space, the open letter stirred up a deeper issue: Merchants fear nonprofits like the daycare are being prioritized at their expense, literally.

At the very least, the person who wrote the open letter--who asked not to be named, citing pending business deals--would like to see a temporary merchant-oriented use of the space, until the daycare center moves on its expansion plans. Other merchants agree: "We would like to see a nice family business go in there," says Adrian DeCoster, from her Women's Hall of Fame shop in the market's lower level.

Merchants worry they may be picking up the slack on common expenses--utilities and overhead for the market's landlord, the Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority (PDA), for example--since they pay full rate for rent, while organizations like the daycare get a rent break for the space they occupy. "They're making [the Parrot Market on Western Avenue] into the daycare space, but they say, 'We need money,'" says a lower-level merchant, who also asked not to be named. If the storefront had been rented to a commercial business, it would have meant more money for the market, the merchant explains. The daycare center, as one of the market's nonprofit ventures (along with senior housing, a market clinic, and low-income housing--what the open-letter author calls "the ever growing nonprofit presence"), pays less rent than a commercial business would, or a 50%-80% reduction from commercial rates. Moreover, merchants point out, nonprofits get funding boosts from the philanthropic Market Foundation, while merchants are on their own, supported mainly by the market's two merchants associations.

Last year, the market rumor was that the PDA was thinking of turning the entire lower-level area of the market--which was ailing, merchants admit--into office space. "What we really need are draws to the market," says Patrick Kerr, chair of the Market Area Merchants Association, and owner of Patrick Kerr Pen and Ink. Businesses that draw in customers feed off of each other. But Kerr understands that the PDA can't be entirely choosy when it comes to tenants: "They have to replace them with whatever comes along."

That's exactly what's happening with the prominent vacancy retailers are grousing about, the Parrot Market space on the Western Avenue stairclimb, says PDA Director of Communications Stephanie Cirkovich. She explains that the Parrot Market situation isn't as controversial as the open letter makes it out to be. The space was advertised for six months to anyone who wanted to lease it, and the daycare center eventually did. "We've been leasing it to the childcare center for the past year now, and they have been trying to raise money to turn it into an infant center," she says. The PDA could sublet the space to someone else temporarily, but Cirkovich points out that since the space was a pet shop, "there is obviously a lot of cleanup that needs to take place." As for the merchants' worries of a market divide between commercial uses and nonprofit uses, Cirkovich says both are spelled out in the market's charter. "I don't think that they're mutually exclusive."

amy@thestranger.com