West Seattle light rail plans give business owners sticker shock

SEATTLE – Pub owner Laurel Trujillo, whose Ounces Taproom & Beer Garden will probably be demolished to make room for a Delridge light rail station, thinks she might spend $750,000 to replumb, rewire, redecorate and rent some other building in West Seattle.

The only compensation she’s certain of getting is a $50,000 business re-establishment stipend, a figure that hasn’t been adjusted in 20 years. Trujillo also hopes that a hodgepodge of other reimbursements will come from Sound Transit, but reckons those would still add up to only one-third of her needs.

“I’ve been a thriving business now for eight years in this spot,” Trujillo said. “We already did the startup thing once; we already dug into our own pockets.”

Sticker shock is spreading across West Seattle, where a 4-mile light rail spur expected in the 2030s would displace 63 businesses at Delridge, Avalon and Alaska Junction stations, plus 33 more to expand SODO Station, affecting a total 610 employees, the project’s environmental impact statement says.

West Seattle light rail to displace small businesses

About 60 businesses in West Seattle will have to close or move elsewhere if Sound Transit builds its three proposed stations at Delridge, Avalon and Alaska Junction to open in the 2030s.

To be sure, the West Seattle megaproject might be delayed or reduced because of its costs, which soared this year to $7 billion, without a new finance plan to keep up.

But for now, it’s full speed ahead. Eight years after planning began, Sound Transit’s game of Monopoly by the Duwamish finally seems real.

The transit board approved West Seattle Link’s alignment in October, and the Federal Transit Administration is expected to rule in February that the proposed line follows federal laws. These milestones trigger the legal green light for eminent domain, so Sound Transit may compel landowners to sell their parcels.

Property owners typically accept an appraised or negotiated market price for land and buildings. They have the right to sue for a higher amount.

Business owners who rent or lease property have fewer protections.

Most of the world’s major transportation lines force somebody to move, and Sound Transit light rail construction over decades has led businesses to be razed or obstructed at Rainier Valley, Capitol Hill and Lynnwood.

In the 2030s, takings are likely in South Everett, including homegrown stores founded by Latino immigrants.

Washington state law caps the stipend for business “re-establishment” at $50,000, as explained in Sound Transit’s handbook.

Additional money is available, without a cap, for certain documented moving expenses, but not for major renovations and higher rents.

“Each situation is different, and we have relocation agents who work with each potentially displaced person or business to maximize the benefits they may qualify for,” spokesperson Rachelle Cunningham said.

Sound Transit’s methods to compensate businesses align with federal rules, and there’s “not much differentiation across the right-of-way industry,” she said.

(The Code of Federal Regulations prescribes a $33,200 reestablishment pay limit, but an FTA spokesperson said some states go higher.)

Transit board members admit they’ve heard an earful. They haven’t proposed a richer deal.

The $50,000 re-establishment payment, which also applies to Washington State Department of Transportation projects, was enacted by lawmakers back in 2003. Inflation has reduced that value, for instance an 87% increase in lease costs in Seattle, based on a state online calculator.

“Given today’s economic realities, these caps could use revision,” said state Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-West Seattle.

Or, a “case-by-case analysis to offer fair market value for relocation assistance, rather than relying on a set cap.”

House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, has spoken with managers at endangered Alki Beach Academy day care, and said he’ll talk to colleagues about potential legislation to improve business payments, before the January session.

Anxiety on tap

Trujillo opened her pub along Delridge Way Southwest in 2016, the year voters in three counties passed Sound Transit 3 tax increases to finance a dozen projects. She recalls voting yes.

“We were like thinking, ‘Hey, that would be cool, if it ended up coming nearby us,’ ” she said. “We weren’t thinking, ‘Oh yeah, this is going to come plow through our business.’ ”

That realization dawned in January 2022, when a draft environmental-impact statement showed all Delridge Station options would demolish Ounces, Skylark Cafe & Club, Mode Music Studios, the day care, and a petite strip mall containing Delridge Mini Mart.

Trujillo said it will be hard to replicate her mostly outdoor setting, in an easy-to-reach location, and rebuild the interior for 30 wall-mounted beer taps plus coolers. The places she’s scouted are larger and may charge twice her $4,100 monthly rent on Delridge, she said.

Skylark Cafe owner Matt Larson said low rent and ability to host loud bands, his downstairs green room and storage coolers, and high ceilings in his 101-year-old brick building are a rare combination.

Supporters have given $14,694 to his online moving fund toward a $250,000 goal.

Alki Beach Academy, licensed to serve 127 children, has drawn attention because of Seattle’s child care shortage.

Academy managers wanted to enroll 300 children, by expanding next door within an underused office park. But if that’s demolished, Jordan Crawley, operations and policy director, said even after a $50,000 payment, plus transit staff taking a generous view of “moving expenses,” he’ll need $2.5 million to renovate 25,000 square feet of licensed space for 300 kids elsewhere.

“The system as it stands is incredibly unfair to commercial tenants,” Crawley said.

He suggests indexing the state cap to inflation; aid for enterprises like child care which complement transit-related development; and a low-interest loan fund.

Uncertainty reigns at West Seattle Health Club, where Sound Transit drawings showed a concrete rail column in the swimming pool, forcing the club to relocate. Metropolitan King County Council member Teresa Mosqueda, whose family patronizes Delridge businesses, formally requested the tracks be shifted 20 feet south of the pool. The club has notified 6,200 members the landowners are shopping for new property, to rebuild within three to four years if needed.

Sound Transit Deputy CEO Terri Mestas left wiggle room, however, telling the transit board in late October her team is “working with the property owners at the pool on some different scenarios.”

The club’s general manager, Chauna Brooks, said last month she’s heard nothing directly about route adjustments: “We’re crossing our fingers and hoping.” Mosqueda said transit officials offered to help fund a new pool, which she considers insufficient, if kids and older adults must walk outdoors from the main club building.

Uphill at the future Alaska Junction Station, Keith Edwards, owner of The Joint chiropractic franchise, said he can’t get clear answers for tenants in Jefferson Square, which Sound Transit would demolish to stage equipment and materials. A total 44 businesses and 111 housing units would be removed around Alaska Junction and Avalon stations, followed by denser redevelopment.

Edwards urged transit staff to take a mostly empty bank parking lot across the street, but Sound Transit says that scenario also would demolish an apartment complex.

“It’s confusing, the endless meetings that you sit in and then you realize, ‘Oh, everything is falling on deaf ears anyway,’ ” said Edwards, who arrived from Arizona two years ago.

Sound Transit’s real estate staff is circumspect both in community meetings and board briefings, leaving local attendees grasping for details. Property transaction sequences are tightly regulated, and no middle manager wants to ruin their career by writing a verbal check they can’t cash.

More money

Will politicians spray extra money to quench local brushfires?

There’s precedent. Local governments formed a Rainier Valley Community Development Fund in 2002, starting with $50 million mostly from the city of Seattle. The nonprofit distributed loans, payment for lost revenues, moving expenses, advertising and other services because Martin Luther King Jr. Way rail construction blocked merchant access.

King County Executive Dow Constantine, who chairs the transit board, considers the Rainier Valley fund “an interesting model for community support,” spokesperson Amy Enbysk said. Constantine is open to talks with federal and state lawmakers about new compensation rules, reflecting actual Seattle-area costs.

“It is important that we do everything we can to be good partners with the communities in which we build,” Enbysk said.

Metropolitan King County Council members passed a 2025 budget amendment, sponsored by Mosqueda, requiring Constantine to explore using part of a $315 million education fund – the 2015 Legislature required that $500 million in ST3 taxes be peeled off for education in three counties – to help child care and arts education venues relocated by rail construction.

Before landowners or renters are forced to move, the 18-member transit board must vote on groups of transactions listed by land parcel. Officials might be tempted to snatch up land now, before they identify money to build the train line; and a few owners will ask to end the drama ASAP. More likely, the board will spend time to cobble the needed $7 billion finance plan, then schedule most condemnations later, to fit construction bidders’ timelines.

A slow-moving land buyout would give owners, merchants, customers and renters extra months to prepare, but also keeps people’s lives longer in limbo.