The lengthy construction project on 23rd Ave. became too much for Nop Zay, owner of First Cup Coffee, which shuttered this week.
The lengthy construction project on 23rd Ave. became too much for Nop Zay, owner of First Cup Coffee, which shuttered this week. Kelly O

It has almost been a year since a $43 million construction project began along the Central District's 23rd Avenue corridor. Although the city offered up $650,000 in mitigation funding to support the nearby businesses impacted by project delays that severely reduced car traffic, the weight of the closures was still too much.

Nop Zay, owner of First Cup Coffee, which is located close to Union Street and 23rd Avenue, told The Seattle Globalist that, despite receiving $25,000 from the city's 23rd Avenue Business Stabilization Fund, she has to shut down her kiosk. She cites financial problems directly linked to the construction project along the road.

For four months, she’s seen the formerly constant traffic to her drive-through trickle down to some days receiving less than $20 in sales. The decreased sales coupled with a rise in rent meant that Zay could no longer sustain her drive-through coffee shop ...

“If at least we’d have $500 a month, I’d be satisfied. But all the electricity and water bills and the rent… ” she said. She said the money from the city will cover debts incurred during construction. “I have so many holes, and I don’t have enough.”

Zay fled Vietnam in the 1980s and lived in refugee camps in Thailand and Cambodia with her children. She ran First Cup Coffee, which is also called Mama's, for 12 years.

"Maybe someone needs a server? I need to find a new job. I’m 70. How am I going to find work?” she told the Globalist.

Heartbreaking.

Overall, the long-term construction project has a disproportionate effect on businesses owned by people of color. As Heidi wrote, Seattle King County NAACP President Gerald Hankerson believe that the city's handling of the project is a means to further gentrify the Central District, a historically black neighborhood.

"Black-owned businesses and small businesses have been the hardest impacted since the recession," Hankerson says. "While we're in a so-called recovery, there's no effort from anybody locally, at the state level, or federally to help these struggling mom and pop shops in the neighborhood. They're just sitting here watching them die. That should be criminal."

According to the Seattle Department of Transportation, the construction project/nightmare will be completed in early 2017.