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Goodbye, Seattle
Columbia Sportswear is closing their downtown Seattle store. Covid-19, homeless issues, looting, and high crime rates in the downtown area have led to the closing of the store that first opened in 2008.
In yet another sign of COVID-19′s mounting economic costs, the Columbia Sportswear store has joined the list of businesses that won’t reopen in downtown Seattle after the pandemic.
Columbia Sportswear, one of Oregon’s largest companies, hasn’t publicly commented on the fate of the store at Third Avenue and Pine Street. It was looted during the May 30 protests and is currently boarded up.
But three company employees confirmed that the store, which opened in 2008, is now permanently closed. They said the decision was driven by losses from the pandemic and concerns over downtown’s economic recovery, but also broader business challenges in downtown, including shoplifting and street crime.
Columbia will not be the only store leaving downtown Seattle.
The departure of Columbia Sportswear is the latest in a series of high-profile closures in a part of Seattle that has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic. Since March, 126 street-level downtown business locations have closed, according to Downtown Seattle Association (DSA).
The Oregonian seems to be spinning the story towards the pandemic rather than the rise of street crime, looting, violent riots, and the homeless problem in Seattle. That should come as no surprise to Oregonian readers as they have difficulty in making the distinction between rioting, and peaceful protests in Portland.
Portland is facing the same problem, but blaming Covid-19 rather than a dysfunctional city government is not going to solve the problem.
Will the last person leaving Seattle and Portland please turn off the lights.
Published in Business
Perhaps once COVID-19 stops looting stores and burning buildings, some businesses might re-open. But Trump’s botched response to COVID-19 makes this impossible, alas…
Based on the recent experience in California, that may not be necessary. The lights may be out by that time anyway. And it will be Trump’s fault, according to local residents who have been voting Democrat for decades.
Homeless camps growing in Seattle as city pledges changes to Navigation Team.
They are pretty much everywhere now. Yesterday the city council overrode the mayor’s veto of their bill cutting funds for the police department. The “Navigation Team” (what a weird name for a group of people whose job is outreach to the homeless population) will be cut, but they were already relatively ineffective. This is due to the fact that they can’t do anything for a homeless person who wants to remain homeless.
IIRC Columbia threatened Pre-Covid to close its Portland store over homeless issues.
Not sure which Bee article is more appropriate.
https://babylonbee.com/news/doh-last-remaining-guy-who-hasnt-fled-california-now-has-to-pay-all-the-taxes
https://babylonbee.com/news/leftists-threatning-to-rebuild-everything-and-burn-it-down-again
I’ll write a members only post on my impressions of Portland when my wife and I returned from Arizona to the Portland Metro area. She wanted to be closer to the grandchildren so I told her that you can choose any place in Oregon with the exception of Multnomah County, and within the city limits of Portland.
I come across this all the time. It’s not the economic cost of the pandemic, it’s the economic cost of GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE to the pandemic.
It is truly stunning that so many elected officials knowingly persist in KOVID-Kabuki out of some weird inertia to Do Something. Science says that kids are not at risk but schools must be closed or burdened with silly requirements; the zero-risk healthy 20-60 somethings should be spreading the bug to each other as fast as possible to build a wall of herd immunity to protect Granny but we are all ordered to do the opposite.
Then on top of that, the failure to enforce the law will obviously destroy downtown areas, cripple future tax revenues and re-segregate entire metropolitican areas and yet not enforcing it is the priority. The failure to refute the statistically ridicuouls narrative that black people are hunted by police obviously stokes violence and shatters police morale.
Lastly, add the west coast malfeasance of zero forest management then blaming the inevitable on “climate change.”
If these elected officials deliberately set out to do as much social and economic damage as possible, could they have done any worse to us?
126 stores?? Wow! That is truly truly sad. We have a Columbia Sportswear store here in FL – I wonder what its fate will be. I am deeply saddened for the population in the western states – the people that did everything right – lockdown, paid taxes, built their businesses, fed their families and now its unrecognizable – a beautiful part of the country once.
I don’t want to give the impression that I think the pandemic is a non-event. That is not true. Certainly for those over 50ish and those with other underlying health issues, the pandemic is dangerous and life threatening. Those people – I am one of them – and those in close contact with them should observe a mask/hygiene/distance protocol. But the data is clear. For the young … say under 25 or 30 … the pandemic is, on average, less lethal than the seasonal flu. For teens and under, much less lethal. The economy should open up. Life should return. Exceptions should be made for the at-risk. For instance, Businesses having special hours for at-risk customers makes sense. During those hours both customers and employees could be required to wear masks. But in general, only the at-risk need precautions.
Perhaps overreaction at the outset was understandable. But at this point there is enough information to allow us to protect the at-risk without destroying everyone and everything else.
A very rational response, but I can’t help remembering this article from The Sun from last year. I think the people who are most strongly in favor of the lockdown are more interested in authoritarian measures than they are the good of older citizens.
The City will blame COVID and a general down turn in retail but probably won’t admit that their own policies played a role. Crime and looting don’t make for an ideal retail experience.
Wow, are YOU doing it wrong! I moved from Oregon to Arizona 30 years ago, because I already saw that Oregon was going down. And just last month, I left Arizona. But NOT to return to Oregon!
I loved Seattle. For 20 years I had 10 acres on Vashon Island for retirement. One attraction was a walk-on ferry that went to the downtown quay so you could go out to dinner without a car. I sold my property about 10 years ago after I decided I was not going to retire there but I still liked to visit. Three years ago , I was there for work and went over to the island. The walk-on ferry is gone. Otherwise it looks the same although more overgrown. I would have no interest in going to Pike Place anymore.
What a shame.
“But three company employees confirmed that the store, which opened in 2008, is now permanently closed. They said the decision was driven by losses from the pandemic and concerns over downtown’s economic recovery, but also broader business challenges in downtown, including shoplifting and street crime.”
That pandemic is sure handy for explaining why the company is fleeing downtown Seattle. So much safer than being candid about what the real reasons might be, I’m guessing.
Bartell Drug, a local chain, closed its downtown store and left, long before the pandemic. Street crime was the reason.
Well, we know what Seattle’s new Street Czar is going to do – lease the building and turn it into a brothel . . .
Until that closes too, because homeless street people can’t afford a brothel, either.
The homeless street people already have their free brothels.
Ick.
And of course, it ain’t really a brothel if it’s free.
Good riddance to Seattle, though, honestly. My wife and I lived there for about 3 years and there are some pretty cool things about the city. We were very happy to be gone, though. We very rarely visit, even though it is only a few hours to the west.
Quite frankly, I want to see as much damage to Seattle as humanly possible. It will rebuild, but it can only rebuild when there are enough people who want to rebuild it, and that means it will have to reach a point where people actually wake up to what’s going on.
I keep saying that I hope some antifa or BLM group blows up the space needle… I’m being a bit facetious, but I still have friends in Seattle, and it is amazing how groupthink takes over. They don’t see any problem with what is happening, now, and any problems they’re willing to admit are the fault of conservatives, etc…
As I said, sometimes an addict has to hit rock bottom before deciding to make changes.
It’s funny but I was in Cour d’Alene, ID in 1959 for several months and the talk was about the state east of the Cascades seceding and forming a new state called “Lincoln.” Seattle has been hated by the rest of the state that long.
It’s been a long time since Seattle was the great place we saw in “Here Come The Brides.”
Oh, and speaking of “retro Seattle” there’s this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbzPooqlZ84
But this one really comes first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0isH8D5Lcs