$36M overpass might be open, but closure leaves many Pasco small businesses needing help
The “Open” sign is illuminated again in the window of the Torres family’s tire and auto repair shop in Pasco and customers are slowing starting to return.
But 20 to 30 businesses in downtown Pasco, primarily Hispanic-owned, are far from recovered from the financial impact they say they suffered during eight weeks of construction on the final part of the Lewis Street Overpass.
Valerie Torres, her family and other business owners say they still have seen no financial help from the city of Pasco. And a grant program that was supposed to help them could end up being no help at all for some.
The $36 million construction project began in August 2021, replacing the historic Lewis Street Underpass with a new 625-foot-long bridge connecting downtown with east Pasco. It officially opened to traffic on Friday.
Five blocks of Lewis Street, between 2nd Avenue and Oregon Avenue, had been closed off since Feb. 26, as construction workers finished rerouting the street onto the new span. The overpass features two traffic lanes, bike lanes and sidewalks.
With minimal traffic during the construction and lack of consistent signage, many of the downtown business owners were forced to limit their hours or they closed for up to three days some weeks. Others closed for longer stretches.
Torres, manager of Lewis Street Tire & Torres Auto Repair, said that the family-owned business closed for more than a month, starting March 18. Her father, Ramiro Torres, owns the tire shop, which has been in operation for 30 years. It’s been a staple on Lewis Street for 10 years.
“It’s just been a lot of miscommunication and us having to ask for things from the city. They’ve been reactive, not proactive,” Valerie Torres told the Herald. “Twenty to 30 businesses have fallen through the cracks. It’s not acceptable… We have the means to work, but when they take away all of our access, it makes it impossible.”
BLOCK GRANT MONEY
The city of Pasco intends to support affected businesses by offering applications for a newly established 2024 Small Business Relief Program through Community Development Block Grant program (CDBG).
The grants are a federally funded program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Funds are passed through grants from Washington state.
City staff has hosted weekly update meetings with business owners on Thursdays since March 28. The city also added road signs after the initial street closure to tell potential customers that the businesses near the overpass were open during the project.
Valerie said the Lewis Street businesses also were promised a larger advertising campaign, but that never happened.
Applications for the 2024 Small Business Relief Program opened online on Thursday, April 18. The maximum grant award is up to $15,000 per eligible business, taken out of a fund totaling $370,000. Funds will be disbursed by May 7.
But the application makes it difficult for affected businesses to get assistance due to eligibility requirements. Businesses must demonstrate a negative financial impact of at least 15% because of the closure and have five or fewer fulltime eligible employees.
Lewis Street Tire has six full-time employees, so will not be eligible.
“First, it started off that people were going to get $20,000. Now it’s $15,000, if some qualify. I mentioned to the city that if some don’t qualify, does that increase funding for others? The answer was ‘no,’” Valerie said.
FEDERAL RULES
Pasco’s Deputy City Manager Richa Sigdel said that requirements in the application for the funds were set by HUD.
“Within the CDBG funds, there is an avenue via microenterprise grants that could help these businesses,” she said. “It’s still a federal grant that has requirements that we, as a city, cannot waive.”
Valerie also questioned what would happen to remaining money that isn’t disbursed. “There wasn’t an explanation,” she said. “When we applied for COVID relief funds, it wasn’t this complicated.”
What’s bubbling up as a greater issue is the income requirement. The business owners must show low-moderate income (LMI). The application states, “To qualify for assistance, gross annual income from all household members 18 years and older must not exceed 80% area median income.”
The application documents list two different income limits, creating confusion among business owners.
“As a business, sometimes you make more than these income levels each month. It depends on the type of business. If you are a mechanic, you’ll have customers that pay $2,000 to change an engine. Payments can be up to $4,000 per customer,” said Blanca Garcia.
Her husband, Alvaro Enriquez, owns Al’s Automotive Repair. Garcia is a cosmetologist and owns Paris Beauty Salon on the second floor of the building at 218 W. Lewis St.
“You compare that income to the income of a beauty salon, and it is much different. The income is much less,” Garcia said. “With the existing requirements, many of us aren’t going to qualify.”
Rigdel said the block grants are the only funds currently available to support these businesses.
“At this time, we do not have something that’s clearly evident as the next source of funding, but we are always looking for other avenues,” Sigdel said.
She mentioned grants that businesses could qualify for through the Department of Commerce, Pasco Chamber of Commerce, Tri-city Development Council (TRIDEC), Tri-cities Chamber of Commerce and other partners.
“Sometimes those avenues are a lot better than what the city can provide because they are geared toward businesses,” she said. The city also is working with the Washington Small Business Development Center, which acts as as a bridge between the city and the small businesses.
“I understand where the anger and frustration is coming from,” Sigdel said. “Federal funds come with strings. Unfortunately, we don’t have an avenue to provide funding without a significant amount of supporting information.”
“We’re working through it,” she said. “From the very beginning, we knew that this was going to be a difficult grant for people to walk through. For people who do not qualify, we’re really hoping that we can leverage some of our partners. We will be continuing the discussion and seeing how we can help our small businesses here and across the city.”
A planning commission meeting is set for Tuesday, April 30 at 6:30 pm, when the Annual Action Plans for Program Years 2021-2024 will either be approved or denied.
That decision will officially reallocate money to the 2024 Small Business Relief Program project from the Lewis Street (2nd to 5th) project.