West Seattle companies worried about relocation compensation in the lightsho expansion

Seattle – The planned Sound Transit expansion in West Seattle faces money problems on multiple fronts. The Light Rail line is short of billions of dollars and business owners that will be displaced by the proposed route said they cannot be relocated. On Tuesday, traffic executives updated the leaders of the city of Seattle in the weak.

Sound traffic has seen significant cost increases from voters Sound Transit 3 (ST3) approved In 2016. At the same time, small businesses that will be displaced to give way to the project are concerned that the compensation they receive will be too small so that they really relocate and reopen.

Alki Beach Academy is among those who try to solve how they will continue to operate once they are forced to move.

“Financial support and resources for small displaced companies that are tenants are extremely minimal,” said Jordan Crawley, director of Policies and Operations at Alki Beach Academy.

The owners receive a fair market value for the land that will have to surrender, but the solid traffic also needs to eliminate approximately 70 companies to give way to the new route to the crossing of Alaska.

Tenants such as the Academy, which provides attention and programming for babies to preschool children, said the help they currently obtain has a limit of $ 50,000 plus 100% of their move expenses. There is a bill that makes its way through the legislature that would increase that limit to $ 200,000, but HB 1733 still needs to approve the Senate and be signed by the governor before it can enter into force.

“For a business like ours, we are seeing more than $ 3 million in expenses to restore our business,” said Crawley, well above the compensation offered to them.

Previous coverage | West Seattle Link Extension Route, stations established by Sound Transit Board

Crawley took his concerns to the City Council, where the Seattle Transport Committee was receiving an update of sound traffic executives in their own struggles to finance the extension of West Seattle of $ 7 billion.

“The demands of labor, materials and equipment: they are promoting the costs of real estate costs continue to increase,” said Brad Owen, executive director of the capital delivery department in Sound Transit.

The sound transit is short of around $ 3 billion and had been counting on federal dollars that can or can be approved. For now, they are looking for other ways to reduce costs and be more efficient.

The City Councilor of Seattle, Rob Saka, who chairs the transport committee, said it is a great gap that could greatly alter the system that is finally built.

“It will invariably result in a revised scope and a deep analysis to discern what type of additional cost savings measures could be taken,” Saka said.

A Sound Transit spokesman provided a written statement that offered more details.

“Sound Transit financing for construction and traffic operations comes from a combination of local taxes, subsidies and federal loans, loans through the issuance of bonds, interest profits, income from rates and other diverse income. The agency works to maximize the funds of federal subsidies and loans, observing the portfolio of the projects and the best strategy to maximize federal dollars, and We will continue, what will continue.

Although solid transit continues to plan the new line, the Transit Agency will finally need to write a new financial plan that could mean dependence on the financing of third parties.

The West Seattle project is currently expected, including an extension of 4.1 miles of the existing system, which will begin south of the stadium station, which runs by Duwamish river and ends in Alaska Junction. The current schedule has the construction from 2027 and the operations to begin in 2032. Transit executives hope to have more clarity about the cost of the project for this fall.

The West Seattle link line is expected to reduce travel times in half compared to a metropolitan bus for people traveling between Alaska Junction and Westlake Station.

As Sound Transit ends the plans to design and build a light line of Light to West Seattle, Crawley said that he supports the expansion, but also needs the city leaders to be supported because their location will be among the first to be displaced.

“We will need support sooner rather than later and we cannot afford our leaders to wait,” Crawley said.