Is Pike Place Past Its Peak? Some Merchants Complain Of Lower Revenue

Wed., March 26, 1997

Associated Press

The Pike Place Market may be a victim of its own success.

While revenue was down for many retailers in the market last year, other businesses in the area are now offering some of the goods and services that made the market so popular in the first place.

“We see clear signs of competitive pressures,” said Shelly Yapp, director of the Pike Place Market Public Development Authority.

Last year, almost half of the 181 market tenants reported lower revenue. And the overall increase on $50 million total revenue for the year was 4.3 percent, slightly above the rate of inflation.

Some of the competition comes from stores such as Larry’s Market and QFC, which have boosted their offerings of fresh produce, baked goods and fresh fish - “in many respects, a copying of the market,” Yapp noted.

And there are more farmer’s markets, too; 54 total in the state compared with the early 1970s when Pike Place Market looked like it might be the last one.

Forty-seven percent of tenant revenue at the market comes from food-basket items, including 19 percent from fish. The other 53 percent is divided between dining out and mercantile.

Food-basket sales at the market kept pace with similar stores in the Puget Sound area last year with growth of 4.6 percent.

But the mercantile category, including clothes, antiques, books, gifts and crafts, at 5.4 percent was below the average local growth rate.

And the market’s dining-out category at 2.5 percent annual growth was much below restaurants in general, which had a 6 percent gain.

More competition may be on the way. Yapp sees “an explosion of new restaurants” coming downtown along with 700,000-square-feet of new space in the retail core. The QFC grocery store scheduled to open soon on Broadway will have 45,000-square feet, 10,000-square-feet more than the market.

Fewer Seattle residents are willing to make the trip to the market these days because of goods and services closer to home, some with plentiful free parking.

The market has free parking for 30 minutes or less on weekdays and on Saturday mornings before 10 a.m.

“We’re constantly looking at ways of using parking,” Yapp said.

And the tourist trade is a mixed blessing for locals. While tourism is great for the market, “the visitors make the market so crowded that keeping the regular customers is a challenge,” Yapp said.

For now, the market survives without any direct subsidies, and it continues to pursue its special mission to serve low-income people. One of its most recent leases was to the Chicken Soup Brigade thrift store.

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