{"id":897323,"date":"2026-10-28T08:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T08:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897323\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T08:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T08:34:14","slug":"survey-shows-high-percentage-of-seattle-businesses-have-considered-moving-out-of-emerald-city-kiro-7-news-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897323\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey shows high percentage of Seattle businesses have considered moving out of Emerald City \u2013 KIRO 7 News Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 Around half of Seattle businesses report that are considering moving or shrinking, blaming a business environment that they say is getting worse and don\u2019t believe it looks like it will get better, according to a survey<\/a> from the Downtown Seattle Association and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. <\/p>\n

Fifty-six percent of businesses say the business climate has worsened, 61% are pessimistic about the next 12 months, 47% have considered moving jobs out of Seattle, and 72% say Seattle\u2019s taxes, fees, and compliance costs are not competitive. <\/p>\n

Jamila Conley, the owner of WeRise Wine Bar, says it\u2019s hard not to consider other locations than her spot in downtown<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I understand why people go to Bellevue,\u201d Conley said. \u201cYou travel five miles over the water and your minimum wage drops, your insurance drops, your taxes drop and it\u2019s just like, \u2018oh I get it.\u2019 I am Seattle ride or die, but it sure does look appealing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conley understands the choices some businesses make when they don\u2019t have the same commitment to the Emerald City as she does, especially by exempting tips from minimum wage at the beginning of this year and by raising the rate again at the start of next.<\/p>\n

Mayor Katie Wilson says the automatic increase is important to keep workers afloat in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is really important when we\u2019re thinking about what it takes for our lower-wage workers to actually live in this city, right, and we want to create a city where people can afford to live in the communities where they work,\u201d Conley said. <\/p>\n

Conley gets it, but points out that wages are rising faster than inflation and the cost of living.<\/p>\n

\u201cI support all of that, but you can\u2019t do that in a vacuum because all you\u2019re doing is like, yeah, this person used to be able to have this job, but if the place they\u2019re working can\u2019t afford them anymore, how is this helping?\u201d Conley said. <\/p>\n

After more than two years in business, Conley put up a gate in front of her door at 2nd Ave. and Stewart St. to keep her employees safe. She would find half a dozen people huddled in the doorway, sometimes using drugs, sometimes sleeping, other times defecating. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt became more of a business decision and a safety risk than financial,\u201d Conley said. <\/p>\n

The process took six months to get a permit; Mayor Katie Wilson says she hopes to streamline it into a one-stop shop for businesses.<\/p>\n

Sixty-four percent of businesses reported that both taxes and public safety are their top challenges to staying open, according to the survey from the Downtown Seattle Association and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

Conley is grateful for the Downtown Seattle Association ambassadors that help keep the area in front of her store clean. <\/p>\n

Wilson says she\u2019s continually looking at ways to improve public safety and homelessness, pointing to her recent streets-to-shelter initiative. <\/p>\n

Conley served on a council of small businesses under the past mayor and hopes to do something similar for Wilson. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to do more. So my office and OED are going to be doing a lot of conversations with small businesses moving forward,\u201d Wilson said. <\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 Around half of Seattle businesses report that are considering moving or shrinking, blaming a business environment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[156908,376197,28,36834,1340,328238,101,376203,376199,3729,376200,15061,376196,376202,3,376204,1839,376201,1977,361112,376198,19185],"class_list":["post-897323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-brandon","tag-brandon_thompson","tag-business","tag-cairo","tag-congress","tag-downtown_seattle_association","tag-economy","tag-jamila","tag-jamila_connolly","tag-local","tag-maya_angelou","tag-mayor","tag-metro_area_chamber_of_commerce","tag-metro_chamber","tag-news","tag-oed","tag-seattle","tag-still_i_rise","tag-video","tag-walla_walla","tag-we_rise_wine_bar","tag-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}