Dori: Downtown Macy’s closure sad but predictable, thanks to city policies

We told you that downtown Seattle businesses were going to be leaving in droves, and sadly this is being confirmed yet again.

Last week we found out that the Bartell Drugs on Third Avenue is closing. The reasons cited by the company were the high crime on the street outside and the extensive regulations imposed by the city of Seattle, which, as we know, hates capitalism.

Now the downtown Macy’s, one of the most heritage, landmark buildings in Seattle, is closing its Third Avenue and Pine Street location.

And this is in a good economy.

The man behind downtown Seattle Macy’s endangered holiday star

We told you this would happen because of two main things. One, of course, is the crime and drug abundance downtown. For a brick-and-mortar store, the only way to compete with Amazon on price is to have margins that are as thin as possible. When drug vagrants regularly walk out of your store with armloads of shoplifted clothing to feed their heroin habit, and the employees cannot do anything about it as per safety regulations, of course the stores cannot stay open. It happened to Bartell’s and it’s happened to Macy’s. Calling the police on the frequent shoplifters is like holding the ocean back with a broom. And the drug addicts know that.

The other reason is the $15 minimum wage. The commission workers still have to make at least $15 per hour. Look at the two stores in the area that Macy’s has closed or is closing — Northgate and downtown Seattle. Both were subject to the $15/hour minimum wage. What stores are staying open? Southcenter, Bellevue Square, and Alderwood Mall — the ones that do not have a $15/hour minimum wage. As we knew it would, the minimum wage is making it very difficult for businesses to compete in the retail sector. Brick-and-mortar retail is struggling around the country, but downtown Seattle has got to be one of the hardest places to survive.

There are many other macro factors at play making retail tough, Amazon being at the top of the list. But, when you combine those factors with the crime and the $15 wage, running a business in Seattle is nearly impossible.

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For lifelong Puget Sounders like me, this is the end of an era. The Bon Marché, which the store was called before being re-branded to Macy’s in 2003, first moved to that location in 1929. I have many memories of the Bon Marché. It was a big deal to hop in the car and drive downtown from Ballard, park in the garage, and walk to the department store via the skybridge on the sixth floor. In the Space Age of the 1960s, a skybridge was very futuristic and exciting to walk across. And once we got into the store, the toy department was always a lot of fun to look at.

The 100-foot star being lit up at the downtown Macy’s always signified the start of the Christmas season. Now the star is under repair, so it won’t go up this year. As I mentioned last week with the Bartell’s story, we used to love going downtown Seattle during the holiday season for the carousel and other Christmas activities when our girls were little. Now, however, we go to Snowflake Lane at Bellevue Square instead, because downtown Seattle is out of control.

And so, another part of our heritage goes away. I’m not sure that anyone could argue that we’re changing for the better around here.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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