That the block was on Sound Transit's list was well known -Broadway's future light rail station is slated for the east side of the block at Broadway and East John Street.
Nonetheless, the official word still came as a shock. Last month, Twice Sold Tales owner Jamie Lutton received notice that the transit agency would be acquiring the building her bookstore has called home for the last 16 years. While the news was fully expected, and while she has until March 2008 to vacate the space, such notice puts Twice Sold Tales' Capitol Hill future at risk.
"It's still early in the search. But there's a 50/50 chance this will put me out of business up here," Lutton said.
Lutton said that Sound Transit's time frame is reasonable; in fact, with the money Sound Transit provided in its buyout offer, Lutton, a frequent Sound Transit critic, thinks that all things considered, the agency is treating her fairly. But, she added, hers is not the sort of business that necessarily travels well.
The store is firmly rooted in its sense of place. Inside, visitors find a well-worn and welcoming sense of clutter. With soft light, narrow shelves crowded to overflowing with a huge variety of titles, the store is also home to several usually sleepy and certainly well-fed cats. The ambience inside Twice Sold Tales couldn't be further from a mall's chain bookstore.
Finding another location will not be easy. For one thing, her East John Street location, not even a block from Broadway, has proved ideal. Adjacent to a bus stop Lutton said helped keep her business going, she's been able to generate the kind of foot traffic a business like hers requires. A good and financially equitable relationship with her landlord has also enabled her business to stay alive. Such a relationship, she fears, may simply be impossible to replicate on Capitol Hill.
20 YEARS ON THE HILL
A bookseller since 1983, Lutton opened Twice Sold Tales in a pushcart in the old Broadway Market (now mostly a QFC) in February 1987. In July 1990, she was able to secure her East John Street location.
The business caught on and in time became something of a Capitol Hill institution. Lutton's expanded the store three times, contracted it once and, for 14 years, stayed open 24 hours on Fridays (the store now closes at 2 a.m. on Friday nights). The store typically stocks between 40,000 and 50,000 titles at any given moment. Not surprisingly, Lutton is herself a voracious reader.
Lutton has since opened a Twice Sold Tales in the University District, which evolved from a Wallingford location, and in lower Queen Anne, where a store opened in May 2004. A store in Fremont was eventually sold; it later closed.
Perhaps not surprisingly, finding the next home for Twice Sold Tales is proving a substantial challenge. Rents are high, and her margins are low. She's made several calls to some of the new buildings on Broadway and on the Hill. Owners of new buildings, she said, aren't exactly jumping at the prospect of renting to her. Then there's the matter of cost. At $35 a square foot, the cost of street-level retail in a new building is simply out of reach.
Lutton has inquired about the space where the Jade Pagoda used to be on the north end of Broadway. The owner, she was told, is looking for a higher-end tenant, one who will be able to support the parking lot behind that building.
"People have been civil to me, but I haven't had any encouragement to talk further," Lutton said. "I think they recognize me as a long-term business, but not the kind of business they really want. Used bookstores can only generate so much money. We make a living on narrow margins. I find the situation interesting and disheartening."
Lutton is worried about the collective loss to the neighborhood if smaller, independent business such as hers aren't able to remain on Broadway in the wake of new developments and Sound Transit construction. If she and other small business owners don't remain on the Hill, the retail character of the street will be forever altered.
"Businesses up here are being scattered on the winds. They're just going to go away. It's death to this corner of Broadway," she said. Such dispersal is a little ironic, she said, since she feels the business climate on the street has taken turns for the better of late.
Her customers were stunned at the news. Countless comments of support were tempered by the surprise of what's to come for the block.
"Very few of my customers were aware that this building is going to be torn down for Sound Transit," she said. (Sound Transit construction is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2008.)
Lutton is now in the process of trying to secure a space in the Pike-Pine neighborhood, a location she does not disclose because she doesn't want to jinx it. If it works out, Twice Sold Tales would stay on Capitol Hill, though it would mean a move away from Broadway.
"This is all progress, right?" she said. "It's sad. I like it up here, and I love doing this. But there's certainly a good chance I'll disappear."
A design review hearing for a proposed development on the block takes place on Wednesday, March 21, at 6:30 p.m. at Seattle Central Community College, Room 3211. For more information, see the Land Use notice toward the bottom of page 3.
Doug Schwartz is the editor of the Capitol Hill Times. He can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com or 461-1308.
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