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Lake St. Repaving and Latino Businesses
from Minneapolis Issues Forum at http://www.mnforum.org/pipermail/mpls/2004-August/034470.html
A number of comments have been posted on repaving and the future
design of Lake St. One important constituency we have not heard
from here is the growing Latino business community. In several areas
the challenges and needs of the Latino businesses take a different
turn from other Lake St. constituencies. To make sure that the Latino
business community remains strong during the trying times ahead,
they need to be as fully informed and engaged as everybody else
along Lake St. If Minneapolis plays its cards wrong, dozens of Lake
St. Latino businesses could be forced to close their doors.
Since last Fall, teams of University of Minnesota students have
been surveying and working with Latino businesses between Chicago
Ave. and the Mississippi river. These comments focus on their findings
for Latino businesses centered in the Bloomington/Lake area.
Almost all the Latino businesses around Bloomington and Lake are
pretty new. A majority of the businesses surveyed by the students
said they had opened less than three years ago. This means that
these businesses have thrown all their cash and then some into getting
the doors open, and have no fat reserves to live on when times get
lean, say during a repaving project. Almost all the businesses also
depend mostly on a Latino customer base - this is different from
many of the Latino businesses located east of Hiawatha.
When asked what were their biggest concerns, most answers centered
around a blend of crime/parking/lighting that runs like this:
Many businesses reported that they have had customers that were
victims of crime while visiting their store. Some were jumped when
coming out, others had cars that had been vandalized.
Some Latino residents are undocumented, and are afraid to call
the police , even when they are victims, for fear that they could
trigger a sequence of events that could lead to them being deported
back to Mexico.
Several businesses said that they thought some criminals may be
targetting Latino customers because they thought Latino crime victims
would be less likely to call the police.
So if you are a Latino customer, and you are afraid of being a
victim of crime, where do you want to park? Right in front of the
store, so you can run right in and out, and so you can keep an eye
on your car.
If you are a businessperson whose customers want to park right
in front of your store, you will be particularly affected if you
lose your parking - for instance, in a repaving project. And you
are likely to be affected if the parking in front of your store
is lost to streetscaping plans.
Latino businesses also wanted more lights on Lake St. to make it
safer for their customers. Streetscaping offers a great chance to
put up lighting that meets the Latino businessperson's needs. However,
the lighting situation will also put even more pressure on Latino
businesspeople during the repaving. Many of the sidestreets in Powderhorn
are virtually pitch black at night - potentially very uninviting
to Latino customers who cannot park in front of their favorite store.
Will these customers be lost during repaving?
The Lake St. repaving and long-term streetscaping plans could well
have an even greater impact on Latino businesses than on many other
institutions.
Meetings on the future of Lake St. have been held in Spanish, and
dedicated Latino businesspeople such at Manny Gonzalez have put
long hours into planning the repaving and streetscape. Nevertheless,
a majority of the Latino businesses surveyed by the students said
that they knew little or nothing about the repaving. This was particularly
true of free-standing stores not located in the Mercado Central.
The students also found that there was a lack of detailed information
about the repaving and streetscape available in Spanish. The students
have translated several documents, and they are now being distributed
to Latino businesses. Much of this information is technical and
difficult to understand even for English speaking businesspeople.
No wonder many Latino businesses did not know much about the repaving.
The students also heard several stories of immigrant businesses
who were so impacted by other repaving projects such as at Nicollet
that they were forced to close
There is supposed to be some sort of assistance available to immigrant
and other vulnerable businesses, but the details have not been worked
out. One of the complaints heard from businesses in other repaving
areas has been that the assistance was either much less than expected
or the aid was very delayed.
These Latino and other immigrant businesses have played a critical
role in the revitalization of Lake St. They have a special set of
needs and priorities. If we want the Latino business community to
be strengthened and not damaged by the Lake St. repaving and streetscape,
then we must do everything we can to engage all the Latino businesses.
And to meet their needs. In particular, we need to reach out to
those free-standing businesses that are not part of such organizations
as Mercado Central.
Jay Clark
Cooper
P.S. Several businesses have reported that the streets are a lot
quieter this summer than in past years. The is probably, at least
in part, because of the intensive efforts of the Minneapolis Police
department at Bloomington and Lake.
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