So here is a program with a success story that is helping start up minority owned businesses and it’s still not good enough for TS. The only reason landlords are participating is they know they will get paid. If you give that money to a biz owner directly what would stop them from using for something other than the intended purpose? Honestly these kind of articles are exhasusting. Instead of uniting and celebrating a modest success TS has to piss all over it because it involves a politician they don’t like (Harrell) and an economic class they despise (landlords).

Why are we wasting my many thousands of dollars in property taxes and sales taxes on a Downtown we don't want to go to?

We want more in our neighborhoods.

Stop trying to tell us what to do, Bruce.

I don’t get the critical tone here. Helping BIPOC small business owners. Generating tax revenues for all those public programs. Why would anyone WANT downtown to fail?

why isnt the free market isn't fixing downtown?

What's wrong with a successful program with a proven track record of helping minority-owned small-business owners stay in the storefronts they wish to operate downtown?

@5 "the program has filled 25 storefronts, including nine in Pioneer Square, six in Belltown, six Downtown, three in Little Saigon, three in Magnolia" If there's something you want to see in your own neighborhood, you might want to consider applying.

Businesses have been lost downtown because of the cost risk-free shoplifting imposes on those businesses.

@12 I think the fact Third Avenue around Pike/Pine is an area most residents and visitors seek to avoid is a big factor as well. Despite working around the corner from the area depicted in the photo accompanying the headline, it's been years since I actually walked on that section of sidewalk. I go to 4th or 2nd instead. The same is true for pretty much everyone in my office, and my wife's nearby office as well.

It's a shame because there was a time I was a frequent patron of the Bartells and the Saas grocery store. I just got tired of having to call 911 for an apparent OD, stepping around piles of human feces, avoiding individuals having a mental health crisis, and all the other day-to-day craziness of that area. It's not worth dealing with any of that when there are other alternatives. Those business, like pretty much every other business on that block, are long gone now.

@3: I’d love to see the Stranger’s internal flow chart for deciding whether something political gets praised or denigrated. I imagine it must have dozens of decision points by now.

@16 I assume Hannah's comment was in regard to the Kress IGA (which I misremembered as Saas above), which used to be located at the right of the frame. Sounds like I wasn't the only one who stopped going there:

According to a statement from the store's ownership, the "Economic, social and political issues associated with doing business in the city of Seattle are ultimately the reasons for closing."

In an interview with KING 5, owners said they feel too many people were loitering around the store and also blamed the city of Seattle for not taking action.

"The hanging out in the sidewalk just being out...they don't get rid of them they are there..customers try and get through they fear coming downtown people just hanging out..they can barely get through there," said the owner.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-grocery-store-closes-citing-hardships-of-operating-downtown/281-1b3ba2a6-4895-4ef5-b639-e7b13f507ef4

@15 I actually think it’s pretty simple. It goes like this:

Does socialist alternative, the transit riders union and the urbanist support this thing?

Yes - love it. No - hate it.

This sounds like a good program. I'm usually pretty cynical about City Government trying to do economic or property development (witness the fiasco that is the empty block that was previously the Public Safety Building) but this is a way to introduce small business back into downtown - something that has been in decline for fifty years.

Those spaces are already filled up. We have:

lumber and construction businesses.... see all the boarded up store fronts and window replacement business is booming
.
Great and vibrant hotel - hospitality ... see all the people sleeping in the door ways,

art installations... see graffiti and other aerosol works ... (artists unknown)

booming, organic pharmaceutical business ... its a miracle how this little cottage business thrives down there.

yard sales and goods exchanges on every corner.... (slightly used tools, stereos, clothing... many with price tags still on them) -- and with better prices than the stores downtown... for exactly the same product.

No, our downtown has very, very robust market enterprises on every corner... and really self regulating.... no business licenses, no legal issues... Its easily settled... any dispute is settled "old school"... trial by combat... either gun or knifes.