Public Service Clinics Topics

Rainier Valley Community Development Fund

Agency/Program Overview

The Rainier Valley Community Development Fund (CDF) is a community-based, non-profit organization, founded in 2002 to manage a $50 million fund established by the City of Seattle, King County and Sound Transit to mitigate lost revenues of the businesses impacted by Link light rail construction along Martin Luther King Way Jr. S and to invest in long-term business and real estate development in the Rainier Valley. It grew out of a desire by both the Rainier Valley community and elected officials to strengthen the community and leverage the economic opportunities created by the Link light rail system operating at street level through the center of the community.

Initially the Fund focused on assisting businesses impacted by the construction of Link light rail. To minimize the impact of the four-year construction project, the CDF offered Supplemental Mitigation Assistance (SMA) to businesses along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. The SMA Program provided financial assistance in the form of grants to businesses that could document a loss in net revenues up to $150,000 or that needed to reestablish a business elsewhere. Under this program, over $15 million was granted to local businesses achieving a success rate of 85% of the businesses operating pre-construction surviving post construction.

RVCDF Today
The Rainier Valley is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Seattle – culturally, ethnically, and economically. Today, the CDF focuses on strengthening and preserving the community by investing in businesses and commercial real estate development while building networks of relationships that supports a strong entrepreneurial environment in the Rainier Valley. Retaining existing businesses continues to be a major focus while expanding the CDF’s strategies to include investing in businesses and organizations that encourage economic opportunities for local residents. The long-term vision for the CDF is to create a community-controlled revolving loan fund capitalized with a minimum of $23 million that supports economic and community development in the Rainier Valley. The fund is being capitalized by public funds appropriated by the City of Seattle through 2012. The CDF intends to supplement these public funds with private capital in the interest of expanding its reach.

The CDF has invested over $9 million to date in loans to small businesses and for real estate development.

Specific Research Question

How do commercial rents in the Rainier Valley compare with rents in community business districts in other parts of the city? If there is a variance, what factors might explain it? Does the diverse ethnicity of the area play a role in business rents being above (or below) other areas of the city?

Additional Project Background

As part of the CDF's mission, we are working to preserve the cultural diversity of the Valley. This entails ensuring that the ethnically owned businesses that have been here long before light rail are able to remain here through the new real estate development and investment that is occurring.

Affordable rent has been an issue that keeps surfacing as a tool that can keep businesses operating here. However, we have no data that compares the rents in the Valley to other areas of the city. Rumors are out there that the rents in the Valley are higher than other areas. If this is true, can we ascertain why and work to overcome it. Absent any data it is difficult to create a long term commercial space strategy for the area.

The outcome of the project would be to have a study that compares the rents in the Rainier Valley with other neighborhoods in the city. The study would also draw conclusions as to why any differences that may be discovered are occurring.
 

Key Steps

• Look at other areas of the city and evaluate the commercial rents
• Look at other ethnically centered neighborhoods and see if commercial rents trend similarly than those in the Valley.
• Test their hypothesis on the CDF staff, various commercial tenants and others before finalizing their conclusions.
   

Additional Research Resources

If you have questions about this topic or would like more information, please contact Martina Guilfoil, Executive Director.