West Seattle scene: Mayor visits Thunder Road Guitars while announcing ‘Only in Seattle’ $ for business districts

(Photo courtesy Thunder Road Guitars. L-R with the mayor are TRG proprietor Frank Gross and staffers Sam Tyner, Will York, Chandler Brown)

A stop at Thunder Road Guitars (WSB sponsor) in The Junction was on Mayor Murray’s agenda today as he announced a $1.4 million city investment in 24 neighborhood business districts as part of the Only in Seattle program. Here’s what OiS supports:

Business and retail development (supporting businesses, attracting new businesses)
Marketing and promotion (events, social media, district advertising)
Clean and safe (graffiti removal, garbage pick-up, lighting)
Streetscape and appearance (catalytic development projects, façade, public art)
Business organization development to sustain the effort, including the creation of a Business Improvement Area (BIA) or exploration to form one

The local grant will total $20,000. The money goes to business districts – such as the West Seattle Junction Association – not to individual businesses. (Here’s the full announcement including who got what all over the city.) TRG’s proprietor Frank Gross has done some extra work for the cause recently – you might recall this story last year when he was announced as a member of the Commercial Affordability Advisory Committee – here’s the result of the work done by that committee.

Joni C February 23, 2017 (7:27 pm)

That’s great, these services are so needed. Thanks for the extra effort Thunder Road!

Kathy February 24, 2017 (12:27 am)

We have a lot of business districts in West Seattle. How will the $20K be divided up among them, I wonder?

WSB February 24, 2017 (6:42 am)

West Seattle actually has only one organized business district (aka “business improvement area”) – the West Seattle Junction Association. I don’t have information yet on exactly what this is going toward but will have a followup when we do.

22blades February 24, 2017 (7:22 am)

I wish The Admiral Neighborhood Association has more bite… I think a more cohesive voice would help the retail environment with better use of city resources. An example is wasted Westbound / North parking in the morning and Eastbound / South parking in the afternoon. The present parking solutions are not palatable to most shoppers.

I personally gave up on the idea / dream of investing in (my) neighborhood & have looked elsewhere. There’s a lot of retail footage coming online but none of it seems sustainable for a small local business. These developments are all shooting for the next big gun tenants like a Starbucks or Panera (so they just sit empty). Your money just goes out of the neighborhood.

WSB February 24, 2017 (8:32 am)

We covered it here a few years ago when ANA tried to help the merchants get going with an association. But eventually the merchants themselves needed to take the ball and run with it – ANA is an all-volunteer group that itself could use more neighborhood participation – and they did/could not. WSJA is an official Business Improvement Area, as explained here, and the area has many more businesses than any of West Seattle’s smaller business districts (Admiral, Alki, Morgan, Delridge Way and 35th SW’s various nodes, etc.) so I don’t know whether that kind of organization would be possible/feasible any place else – TR