Ever since its opening about a decade ago, Esther Short Commons has been a tough home for retailers.
Despite its proximity to popular Esther Short Park, with its string of public activities, the small shops and restaurants in the building’s retail space on West Eighth Street have come and gone quickly. With a new restaurant and a snack store both set to arrive next month, all the retail storefronts will be filled for the first time in a long time. But existing retailers are struggling, and the property owner isn’t sure that a dental office will renew a lease set to expire this year.
“It’s a better mix now, but I’ve always had them come and go,” said Tom Tucker, whose Portland-based Tucker Enterprises owns six of the West Eighth Street retail spaces. “In areas like this, retail has a huge turnover.”
The two new businesses are arriving at the best possible time: Existing tenants say the seasonal Farmers’ Market, which opened for 2015 last month, gives them a big business boost as more people flock to the area. Misty DeWitt, owner of Pro Vitae Vibration Studio at 525 W. Eighth St., said summers are her time to catch up financially. “Winters are very hard,” said DeWitt, who opened the walk-in fitness studio three years ago.
Restaurants in particular have struggled. The space has housed a Quiznos, a salad bar restaurant that lasted just 11 months, and a coffee-and-gelato shop. The retail shops also have been home to a home design store and the Kazoodles toy store, which closed to focus on its east Vancouver location. The Little Pine Tree restaurant, specializing in Korean food, closed last fall.
The area faces several challenges in addition to low foot traffic. Parking is scarce, employees and customers say. Esther Short Park and the immediate area draw transients and shelter-housing residents who sometimes exhibit undesirable behavior. Residents of the Esther Short Commons apartments above the retail space allow their dogs to defecate in tree wells in front of their businesses, business owners and managers say.
In response to that chronic dog problem, Tucker installed small cedar and metal fences around eight street trees to keep dogs away, at least until plantings can take strong root. “The boxes are my third attempt to get plantings established,” said Tucker.
Tucker, who also owns retail property on popular Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, says he’s tried in other ways to make his retail stretch more appealing. He’s donated two large pots for trees in front of the entrance to the Esther Short Building’s 160 apartments, and he’s installed lighting on the street trees to create energy and visibility at night. Still, he says, the rents he can draw at that location are about half those in Portland’s Hawthorne district.
Tucker’s ownership of the retail spaces is part of an unusual property ownership structure. The Vancouver Housing Authority built Esther Short Commons, and it owns the apartments that are rented to people earning no more than 60 percent of the local median family income. Tucker and developer Tom Kemper purchased the building’s retail space, and Tucker later took full ownership. They do not own the space facing Esther Street that houses Anytime Fitness, or the storefronts occupied by Umpqua Bank and the Edward Jones financial adviser.
Newcomers opening next month at Tucker’s property are Crazy Cobb, a snack and popcorn-flavor purveyor relocating from Southern California, and Ichi Teriyaki, a Japanese fast food chain restaurant.
Despite steady turnover, Tucker said he’s pleased that most vacancies have filled up relatively quickly. He expects little trouble finding a medical tenant if the dental office doesn’t renew its lease.
DeWitt appreciates that Tucker gives new, untested business like hers a chance to prove themselves and said she would consider renewing her lease when it comes up in two years. Still, she is keenly aware of the area’s challenges, and sees the appeal of an east-side location. Some east-side residents simply aren’t interested in coming downtown, said DeWitt, who lives in the Salmon Creek area.
“The demographics over there are better,” she said. “The (rental) prices reflect that.”
