Pasco overpass construction forces business to close indefinitely. ‘Can’t wait any longer’

A family-owned business in Pasco that weathered pandemics and recessions is closing its doors indefinitely.

The cause: Road construction.

After three full weeks of road closures that crippled commerce in downtown Pasco, the owners of Lewis Street Tire & Torres Auto Repair closed their doors to customers on Monday for the first time in three decades of operation.

They don’t know when they will reopen.

“I’m officially on unemployment,” manager Valerie Torres told the Tri-City Herald on Monday. “We decided that it would be better for us to hunker down and hold on instead of lose so much every day. It was not an easy decision to come to.”

Their business at 220 W. Lewis Street has been losing thousands of dollars each week since the city blocked the Lewis Street Underpass on Feb. 26. The decision cut off the tire store from customers and foot traffic during their busiest season.

Now, the five employees, including the owners, are without jobs and income.

“Every passing week was just worse for us,” Torres said. “I’ve gotten no new customers (since the construction began).”

The closure underscores the significant financial turmoil that downtown businesses, many of them Hispanic-owned, have been thrown into since the main east-west thoroughfare closed to reroute the road onto a new overpass that’s not finished.

The overpass is not expected to reopen until mid-April.

Lewis Street Tire is the first business to close and others have been forced to cut back on their hours, she said.

Hispanic business owners planned to rally the city council on Monday, March 18, to urge the city to act faster.

Small downtown business owners say they’ve heard differing messages from Pasco city officials about getting them some financial assistance in the mean time, and a lack of a plan has many worried for the future of their businesses.

The city started hosting weekly meetings with the owners and added signs saying that businesses near the overpass are open to customers.

The city also is planning a wider advertising campaign in the coming weeks to get the word out to potential customers.

Financial help

City staff also is taking a second look at the 2024 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program they received this year from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Last year, the city council approved $716,000 in funding that benefited economic, housing and recreation projects. Some of the money, if not yet spent, may be used to help the downtown businesses.

But Torres says time is ticking for several stores, who worry they might go under or have to start laying of employees.

“I just hope that we get answers and we get placed on an urgent status with the city. We can’t wait any longer,” she said. “We need some sort of an answer and a plan soon.”

Block grant money

It’s unclear how much local businesses will be impacted in total by the overpass project, but the city council is asking for more information on that, said city spokesman Jon Funfar.

Deputy City Manager Richa Sigdel said, at the March 11 city council meeting, that CDBG were likely the only city funds that would be eligible for a business financial assistance program providing financial help.

Some business leaders asked about using leftover American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money to make businesses whole. But city staff said those had to be used for companies impacted by the COVID pandemic.

City staff say they also wouldn’t be allowed to use city money for such a program and would need to broaden the application so it would not violate Washington state’s “Gift of Public Funds” doctrine. Some economic development funds could be eligible for use.

The state, counties and cities are prohibited under the state’s constitution from gifting public resources — whether it’s capital or property — to private parties in ways that might disadvantage public interests.

Also, many funding sources the city receives through state and federal programs, as well as from local taxes, are stipulated to be spent for a specific purpose at a specific time. That makes reallocating city money and programs for other purposes difficult.

Lewis Street overpass

The new 625-foot-long overpass will open next month and feature two lanes of traffic, bike lanes and sidewalks. It will span the BNSF Railyard, linking east Pasco with downtown.

It’s being built parallel to the now-closed Lewis Street Underpass, a structure that originally opened in 1937 and is expected to be demolished in early 2025.

In February, the city closed five blocks of Lewis Street, between 2nd Avenue and Oregon Avenue, so that construction crews could safely conduct final work on the overpass and reroute the street onto the new bridge.