A photo across the top of the Dearborn Street
Coalition’s website shows 14 Vietnamese young adults holding a banner
emblazoned, “Save Our Little Saigon.” But despite the neighborhood
coalition’s proud announcement in early September that it had signed a
contract with a mall developer to provide more neighborhood amenities,
Little Saigon may need more saving than ever.
Anchored on South Jackson Street, the neighborhood is lined with
immigrant-owned jewelry stores, pho restaurants, and bustling
grocery shops. Most of the buildings are squat, and the rents are
affordable. But that could change.
The Dearborn Street Coalition boasts 40 member organizations on its
website. However, several of the people involved in the coalition
complain that only four members of the steering committee, including
the Washington Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce (WAVA), signed
the deal with Dearborn Street Developers, which is building a mall on
the current Goodwill site at South Dearborn Street and Rainier Avenue.
Led by Puget Sound Sage, a housing and labor nonprofit organization,
the coalition is mostly made up of labor, housing, and business
interests. But several other organizations that represent residents and
merchants, such as representatives of Squire Park and the International
District, feel betrayed.
“Some groups within the Vietnamese community were not part of the
decision-making process and think that WAVA wasn’t very inclusive,”
says Tom Im, neighborhood planner for Inter*Im Community Development
Association, a coalition member that advocates for responsible
development in the International District. He says members who opposed
the development were “excluded from discussions.” They had argued that
the mall, which will include a 165,000-square-foot Target store, would
compete with and threaten Little Saigon’s independent businesses. The
fallout could cause “a schism between the various Vietnamese
organizations,” Im says.
“This kind of deal is really deceptive and not good enough for the
community to take,” says neighborhood activist Quynh-Tram Nguyen. She
says details of the proposal were never disclosed to many Vietnamese
business owners, who now “do not know what they can say” in the
neighborhood. In late August, Nguyen and her husband circulated
bilingual flyers to Little Saigon business owners in an effort to
inform them about the changes to the neighborhood.
But WAVA director Quang Nguyen thinks the coalition got a good deal
under the circumstances. The development, he says, is “like a big
wave… coming at us. Either we learn to surf it or we try to stop it
and we will be swamped.” He cites the best features of the deal,
including $200,000 toward a Vietnamese community center and 200 units
of low-income housing. Nonetheless, the mall and a simultaneous upzone
in south downtown, which would replace many older buildings with
high-rent modern ones, may come at a long-term cost to a neighborhood
whose independent businesses and low-income residents are increasingly
threatened by rising rents and big-box competition. 
This is really shoddy reporting. The Dearborn Coalition extracted an unprecedented contract with benefits for Little Saigon, surrounding neighborhoods, low-income renters, and the workers who will build and operate the project from a developer who was inclined to give none of that, and the Stranger gives the headline to folks who think they should have gotten more from him? How?
@ 1) We’ve written about this project several times before, and in last week’s issue we wrote about the contract. This article is about the state of the neighborhood.
Neither the proposed project, nor the project mitigation as found in the “agreement” and the current DPD recommendation, address the core issues that have concerned our communities from the beginning.
These unresolved issues include the size of the project and the traffic it brings to the surrounding roadways, the big box formula retail character of the project and lack of sensitivity to the multi-ethnic community into which it is being placed, permanent jobs to people in the surrounding communities (as other CBAs guarantee), and the failure of the developer to adequately mitigate project impacts.
Continuing opposition to the project comes from Interim Community Development Association, the International District Housing Alliance, Squire Park Community Council (which includes parts of Little Saigon), over 20 Vietnamese grassroots organizations, many other neighborhood and small business organizations, and advocacy groups such as the Seattle Displacement Coalition and Real Change.
While the agreement is a milestone for labor interests, it mostly formalizes verbal promises that the developer has made to the City since before the Coalition was formed. The four signatory organizations in fact receive the bulk of the agreement’s financial benefits.
More importantly however is the use of the street vacation dollars to pay for project mitigation and public benefits. The Coalition worked hard to get the City to promise that these monies paid by the developer would be earmarked back to our communities as a community redevelopment fund to better prepare us for the impacts of the upcoming South Downtown rezoning.
Instead those monies are now being used to pay for impact mitigation and public benefits that the developer should be paying for separately according to the City’s own street vacation policy.
In effect, this agreement sets the stage for a big developer give away and deprives our communities of millions of dollars.
dude, pull your head out. been to a Target lately? they are hella diverse. and i’m stoked to not have to go to Factoria (where the customer base is more diverse than most stores in Seattle). AND i already shop in that hood. it’s not like i’m gonna get my Pocky fix at Target, or stop eating Pho cause i’m having a slurpy.
why can’t the diverse asian, hispanic, black and white communities that live in that area have a Target? is it because Target’s not “authentic”?
bullshit. decent, well designed products for everyday living are useful to everyone, regardless of ethnicity.
“Dude, pull your head out.” Ever worked at a Target? Would you want one replacing your place of business?
…and do you want to live two blocks from one ?
Target, “hella diverse” ???
Ummm, I’ve been to most states across the continental US and every Target is the same.
Ever go to a Starbucks in Seattle?
And a Starbucks in Portland?
Starbucks in Texas?
Minnesota?
And, pray tell, where does/did the diversity come into play.
It goes back to the same ‘effin thing. No one goes to Paris to see a Wal-Mart and people aren’t going to the ID (and area) for a Target.
As someone who grew up in a bland bland bland Las Vegas, that is one of the things I immediately loved about Seattle: its truly diverse shopping, economy, culture and people.
You can still get all that run of the mill mass manufactured crap, you just have to drive/BUS further from the city core to get it. Boo Hoo.
Yeay. I have been waiting for this development for the past two years. Can’t happen soon enough. Why should I have to leave my neighborhood and shop in the ‘burbs? I would rather shop where I live. This project will help do that.