Dream Derailed Longtime West Central Store Owner And Philanthropist Regrest The Recent Sale Of His Sure Save Grocery

Bob Lipe is a man of routines. Like clockwork, he used to get up every morning at dawn, have his first cup of coffee, light his first Marlboro Light 100 and head to the Sure Save convenience store in West Central.

At the store on West Boone, Lipe stocked crowded shelves and yukked it up with customers who knew him by name.

“Bob is a fixture in this neighborhood,” said West Central resident Bob Diehl as he pumped $1.09 per gallon gas. “Everyone knows him for what he has done around here.”

But Lipe, whose heart and philanthropy are as big as his belly, says frustration led him to sell the store last month.

Now, instead of stopping by the store, Lipe heads down to his favorite table at Charlie’s restaurant to sip coffee, smoke and yuk it up with the waitresses. “Bob’s great,” said a waitress. “Oh yeah, he tips great.”

Lipe said he decided to sell the store to Chin and Bong Cho in #a moment of weakness” after the City Council on July 10 turned down a permit needed to build Teen Town, the youth activity center he wanted to build next to his Sure Save store.

Construction would have been funded by life insurance money he received after his wife, advertising executive Donna Lipe, died of cancer in January of 1994.

The council rejected the plan because of a lack of specifics and problems with parking and land devaluation because of potential juvenile crime.

“I would still be there if they had decided to let me build Teen Town,” said Lipe, sitting at his table in Charlie’s.

Lipe still owns a Sure Save on North Monroe, which is run by his son, and 15 rental houses in North Spokane.

But the West Central store was his conduit to the community he says he helped because “it has so much need.”

Lipe has been West Central’s biggest philanthropist in recent years - donating use of a building for the city’s first COPS substation; paying $100 a month to a neighborhood “Super Kid”; organizing and paying for part of a massive neighborhood clean-up; and offering to spend between $50,000 and $100,000 for Teen Town.

Lipe also would extend credit to those already in debt to him; rent at one of his houses could be paid off in labor around the store. He once gave away outdoor light bulbs to light up the neighborhood’s dark back porches.

Teen Town was to be the capstone of Bob and Donna Lipe’s neighborhood efforts. The couple had worked for several years on the financing.

Lipe said the center would have included a boxing ring, a basketball court, pool and ping-pong tables and video games. To keep order, teens who violated rules would be expelled.

“We wanted to make it the kind of place kids would not want to be expelled from,” said Lipe.

But some in the community thought otherwise.

“While his intentions are great and ideas are fabulous, it requires a lot more planning than Bob wants to be involved with,” said Cheryl Steele, West Central activist and organizer of the city’s COPS program. “Bob is like Archie Bunker - he has a lot of things to offer, but not a lot of ways to give them.”

Several other neighborhood residents and institutions - including the West Central Steering Committee, Steele and West Central Community Center director Don Higgins - opposed Lipe’s plan.

Lipe said he is a little bitter. The money, after all, was his; contractors offered to donate work and Lipe refined the plan to satisfy some neighborhood concerns.

“It was an easy cop-out,” Lipe said. “They went by the rules and regulations.”

The council’s decision sent him into a tailspin. He got drunk the night after the decision. At work, he stopped having visions of newer and better things.

“You can’t sit still in business and expect to stay where you are,” said Lipe.

His son said Donna’s death affected Lipe more than he has said.

“When my mother passed away, he kind of lost a little of his motivation,” Terry Lipe said. “A little of his wind went out of his sails.”

The offer by the Chos to buy the store for $430,000 came unexpectedly, but it didn’t take long to accept. Without passion, the property was an albatross.

For a month, Lipe helped the Chos settle in. A week into the transition, Lipe awoke in regret.

He now feels “out of the loop” of West Central activism and community spirit, which he fertilized with donation of the COPS shop and his generosity.

“I saw a change in the store,” said Lipe. “Until ‘91, people (coming into the store) would keep their heads down, not talk. Half of them were packin’ guns and knives…

“Now, they come in and laugh and joke. They know one another.”

Like Lipe, Bong Cho said she, too, had no idea what she was getting into when she and her husband bought the store.

Unlike Lipe, the Chos are wary of teens in the store. To cut down on shoplifting, she and her husband installed surveillance cameras and plan to remodel the store to allow a cashier to see down more isles.

“These kids! It’s horrible,” said Cho.

The Chos are not interested in nullifying the deal and turning the store back over to Lipe, Bong Cho said.

Lipe, who began his business career 44 years ago, said he is now looking at options. He still wants to give money away, but no one has given him a Super Kid nomination recently.

Traveling without Donna has little appeal. Retiring has less.

“This is driving me more nuts than I was before. I’ve worked all my life,” said Lipe.

After selling the store, he jokes about putting on a shawl and sitting in a rocking chair. “I sat there for five minutes and it was pretty wonderful,” said Lipe. “Then, by God, I had to get up and do something.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo