Corner Comics and the Loss of Small Business in Kenmore
Posted by John Reiher | Filed under Business
A brief note from the Kenmore Crow: The following is a guest post from John Reiher, who pens the local blog Living Sustainably. The views expressed below are John’s. Thanks for participating, John!
Kenmore is losing small, mom and pop businesses one by one thanks to a city council that either doesn’t care or isn’t willing to help keep these small businesses here in Kenmore, or even to assist them in any way with relocation.
Case in point: Corner Comics
http://www.cornercomics.com/
6575 NE 181st
Kenmore, WA 98028
(425) 486-XMEN (9636)
Corner Comics is moving to a new location thanks to the imminent shuffle of public buildings that will eventually relocate the Kenmore library to their current building. Corner Comics’ last business day at their Kenmore location is coming up quick: Saturday, August 29th, 2009. They are moving to Kirkland, into a rental space they can afford.
I talked to the owner, Paige Gifford, while she was closing up shop. I asked her if it was her choice to move out of the current location. “No,” she replied, “we were told to move by the end of August.”
I then asked her if the City of Kenmore offered her any assistance. “Not one bit,” she said, sounding a little angry. “They never offered any relocation money or any other kinds of assistance.”
She pointed out that the available rental space in the current Kenmore Village is priced far too high, around $40 per square foot. This is nearly double the $20 per square foot that she had been paying at the store’s current location. “None of the local businesses can afford that kind of rent, nobody makes that much money,” she explained.
In Gifford’s opinion, the City Council only wants big box stores and major franchises. She believes that there is no room in the council’s plans for local small businesses.
And she’s not too far off. Ostrom’s went so far as to buy their current location so that they have some control over it. The construction of Kenmore Village by the Lake is stalled indefinitely because the developer, Urban Partners, has been unable to find an anchor store and keeps begging for more time in their search.
Of course it now turns out that even many citizens’ favorite store, Trader Joe’s, was seemingly never invited or courted by local government in any way. It took the initiative of local citizens to get the franchise’s attention, as well as City Council member Laurie Sperry.
She recently sent an email out to subscribers to her blog, KenmoreBlog.net, on August 21st, asking readers if they wanted a Trader Joe’s in Kenmore. If you did, please click a link and voice your opinion. (I do have to note that she misspelled “Trader Joe’s” as “Trader Joes.” One would think she’d get that right.)
Of course I clicked the link and voiced my opinion. But I also think that we need a PCC or a better grocery store in our neighborhood than Safeway or Grocery Outlet.
It would be even better if we had our own Farmers Market. I dearly love the Yakima Fruit Market in Bothell for its variety and types of fresh vegetables. It would be great if we had something like that right here in Kenmore. A grocery store that dealt in locally grown or raised food.
One way we could encourage and support local small businesses such as Corner Comics or a fruit market rather than chasing them away would be to create a business incubator here in Kenmore. It would be a way to encourage and nurture new local businesses in Kenmore, founded by its citizens for its citizens. That’s something our City Council could do, if they could see past Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand of the Market.
Sometimes the Invisible Hand works and sometimes it gives you the invisible finger.
[August 28 update from the Kenmore Crow]
Mayor David Baker responds to some of John’s criticisms in a comment below, which I will duplicate here in the post in order to provide better visibility.
Mayor Baker’s response:
In order to provide accurate information in response to the matter raised by Mr. Reiher. Corner Comics rents on a month by month basis from King County Library System, NOT the City of Kenmore. The library wants to demolish the building in November and is asking all tenants to vacate that are on a month by month basis. If Corner Comics wants relocation expenses then they should contact the King County Library System
The City is not responsible for property owned by the King County Library system. It is not the City of Kenmore’s, responsibility pay for relocation expenses for another governmental agencies action. The only time the City could legally consider relocation expenses is when the city is acquiring the property under state and federal regulations.
The current Kenmore Village rental rates are NOT $40.00 square foot, but range between $5.00 to $17.00 per square foot with several in the $10.00 to 11.00 per square foot range.
The Kenmore City Council, years ago, decided that big box stores did not fit in Kenmore’s long range plans and preferred small local businesses. That is written in to the Cities Comprehensive Plan, Downtown Plan and elsewhere.
The last point is that Ostrom’s Drug and Gift store did NOT buy their current location, they are leasing.
Tags: central-kenmore, city council, Corner Comics, fruit market, Kenmore Village, Laurie Sperry, small business, Trader Joe's, Urban Partners
14 Responses to “Corner Comics and the Loss of Small Business in Kenmore”
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Writing outloud.
The plight of existing small businesses in Kenmore concerns me greatly, too.
I raised that issue early on at two of the public meetings and pointedly to both Developer finalists.
As a commercial property owner (elsewhere) and former commercial tenant (in Seattle) I see both sides. When negotiating leases you bargain for terms and options. Typically, a
private landlord provides allowances for tenant improvements and time increments.Leased space parameters is all really negotiable, depending upon the economic climate, and which party needs the deal the most.
In the case of existing Kenmore Village spaces, the city as landlord has a fiduciary responsibility to Kenmore citizens to maximize rents.
However, it would seem to me that the city could/should have anticipated the need for assistance or subsidy …… but where does that effort begin, and end ….. timing, geographically, and how to qualify the beneficiaries?
Chalk it up to an inexperienced, government –process encumbered landlord.
When it comes to real estate transactions and human resource issues the government
goes to executive session. Executives are hired or elected to make the tough decisions,
and that usually happens privately, under advice of legal council.Surely there has been successful examples elsewhere in the state we could find to guide us.
A “fair to all” option might be to auction the space, thus allowing the city the latitude to
create revenue at whatever the market would bear at that time.Response noted at KBIN
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Thanks Bill for such a reasoned and well thought out reply. Your solution of auctioning off space at city owned properties would better suit the needs of our community.
We’ll see if the city takes this up.
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Since I began writing KenmoreUndressed last year, I have been doing informational blog posts about local businesses in Kenmore. I also attended some of the Economic Development committee open houses in order to get a “flavor” of the relationship between our town government and the business community. I have a couple of observations:
1) There are some incredibly long-lived, local businesses in Kenmore that deserve more attention and support from the City of Kenmore. I have a sense that they will all disappear because the city leaders in Kenmore are more concerned with looking good (getting named #1 in magazines) rather than turning us into a 21st Century city.
2) We are living in a unique transitional economic period. The City should be offering incentives for small-carbon-footprint industry to locate here. Why not attract a medical facility or high tech office space? Instead, there is talk of attracting retailers and restaurants. These businesses are not fundamental to the development of a vibrant business base. Our focus should be on developing high-pay, high-quality jobs. We have enough retailers within a short distance of Kenmore.
3) The City should be encouraging incentives for businesses and homeowners to convert to alternative energy. Residential builders should be encouraged to include solar energy (and other technologies) into its new construction (thus making our real estate more attractive). I can speak from my personal experience as a Realtor that people are not buying homes in Kenmore. We need to make Kenmore more attractive by incorporating 21st Century components into our housing.
4) The whole Kenmore Village project should be scrapped and the public should be allowed to take the lead on re-inventing Kenmore. I remember, many years ago, when the City of Seattle hired outside consultants to “re-invent” the Seattle Center. They spent huge amounts of money, received lots of lousy ideas and, ultimately, went in a different direction. Perhaps Kenmore should learn the same lesson and develop our city around local ideas with local visionaries.Everyone I know says: “You live in Kenmore? What’s in Kenmore. I usually try my best to get through Kenmore.” Personally, I like living here, but Kenmore will lose it’s vibrancy without a clearer vision for the business community.
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Thank you James! We here in Kenmore have to face reality that our current city council is being lead around by special interests and a deep seated need to legislate morals. The Kenmore Lanes cardroom brouhaha was all about legislating morals than anything else? What’s next? Getting rid of the adult shop next to the trophy store? Banning alcohol from the city?
Our city council needs to think less about regulating morals and more about encouraging small businesses in Kenmore.
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The Kenmore Lanes situation is apocryphal in that it represents everything wrong with decision-making in the City of Kenmore. It has cost an undisclosed amount of legal trouble for the city; its closing represents huge losses in jobs and tax revenue and will not result in any overall improvement in the “standard of living” here in Kenmore. A good question to ask about Kenmore Lanes is: What did the City Council intend to do to replace this business?
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I considered starting a business, but the problem is that there is a lack of good store front space in Kenmore right now. And what there is slated to be either torn down or is far off the beaten track.
As they say, Location, Location, Location. What’s available is in my opinion not viable for a new business. The place I would have picked would have been the Schnichelbank building. It’s in a good location. But when you look at the rest of the businesses along Bothell Way, there’s nothing else comparable till you hit QQ Bistro and father west.
I hate to say it, but the Barber Shop and the Paintball shop are sitting on prime real estate for commercial development. I’d love to put a business right there where they are.
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I think it’s an oversimplification to say that banning cardrooms was “all about legislating morals.” I think a perfectly reasonable person could look at Highway 99 through Shoreline littered with “mini casinos” and decide that they do not want Bothell Way through Kenmore to look like that.
Given the years of inaction by the state legislature on the grandfathering issue, it seems to this observer that the council had to choose between allowing a casino free for all or banning them outright, and I think there is a logical, non-morally-charged argument to be made in favor of banning.
IMHO.
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It may be an oversimplification to say that the cardroom issue was a “morals issue” for the entire city council. But I’ve talked to several council members and for a couple of them it was a morals issue. Right up there with letting McMenamims move into St. Edward Park and restore the Seminary building. It all came down to a morals issue, they didn’t want demon liquor in the park. The Bluenoses had their way.
But I also agree with you that the city was faced with a choice of grandfathering in the existing cardroom or ban them completely. I still feel that there could have been some middle ground that the city wasn’t willing to meet halfway on with the owners of Kenmore Lanes.
What’s interesting is that I’ve heard that Kirkland is thinking about letting cardrooms set up in the Juanita Beach/Totem Lake area. So the problem just moved down the road into Kenmore’s backyard so to speak.
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From what I had read, the state courts had been very clear to cities: it’s all or nothing, pick one. They didn’t seem to really leave any room for a “middle ground.”
As far as legislating morals, I think we can agree that there are some morals that should be legislated. Don’t steal, don’t punch or kick people, etc. Of course, that’s not to say we should be legislating all morals, but the difference of opinion to me seem to be about where we draw the line.
Anyway though, that’s getting off-topic. Sorry.
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No problem. This has been a good discussion and has given me all kinds of thoughts about my next topic. Thanks for letting me share my opinion on your blog Crow!
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Okay one more thing on the whole card room deal. I went and looked up the Court of Appeals 2003 ruling that brought this whole mess up in the first place. Here’s what I think is the relevant portion regarding grandfathering:
There is no room to argue that a city can prohibit only future gambling activities.
I’m no lawyer, but that seems pretty clear to me.
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In order to provide accurate information in response to the matter raised by Mr. Reiher. Corner Comics rents on a month by month basis from King County Library System, NOT the City of Kenmore. The library wants to demolish the building in November and is asking all tenants to vacate that are on a month by month basis. If Corner Comics wants relocation expenses then they should contact the King County Library System
The City is not responsible for property owned by the King County Library system. It is not the City of Kenmore’s, responsibility pay for relocation expenses for another governmental agencies action. The only time the City could legally consider relocation expenses is when the city is acquiring the property under state and federal regulations.
The current Kenmore Village rental rates are NOT $40.00 square foot, but range between $5.00 to $17.00 per square foot with several in the $10.00 to 11.00 per square foot range.
The Kenmore City Council, years ago, decided that big box stores did not fit in Kenmore’s long range plans and preferred small local businesses. That is written in to the Cities Comprehensive Plan, Downtown Plan and elsewhere.
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You forgot this last point.
The last point is that Ostrom’s Drug and Gift store did NOT buy their current location, they are leasing.
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Thank you Mayor Baker. We’ll update the article so that it has accurate information.
I do have to say that when I talked to Paige Gifford, she did state that she was told it was $40 a square foot to lease in Kenmore Village. Now, I don’t know if she had talked to the City, Urban Partners, or someone else. I did try to find out on the web whether the price that was quoted was accurate. I was unable to find any information about leasing space at Kenmore Village, so I went with her quote.
As for her moving out, in her opinion it was the City of Kenmore’s doing, not the King County Library. It’s happening in Kenmore, so what’s the city doing about it?
And thanks for clarifying about the Ostrom’s situation. I was under the impression that they had bought the property, not leased it.
But this brings up a point: Small businesses in Kenmore don’t know what’s going on in Kenmore. Misinformation is rife from talking to folks who run businesses here in Kenmore. And it’s probably why we aren’t seeing a lot more new businesses in Kenmore. They see the empty shops in Kenmore Village and think, “This isn’t the place for me” and don’t consider locating here.
Ultimately it’s up to the City of Kenmore to let folks know what’s going on in Kenmore.
David Baker Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 10:48 PM