In light rail’s path, Casino Road businesses brace for impact

EVERETT — Los Gavilanes thrums.

Bakers mix eggs, flour, salt and water to make dough for fresh bread daily. Others decorate intricate cakes. Butchers chop and slice meat. Blenders whirl for fresh juice smoothies.

Customers stream in throughout the day. Card readers beep, and cash registers chime and clang. The store at the nexus of Casino Road and Evergreen Way carries brands and staples for Hispanic and Mexican communities in Everett.

When it opened in 2006, most of the customers were Mexican, said market owner Felipe Hernandez, an immigrant himself.

Soon Hispanic customers got word about the market that sold cow tongue, chicken feet, a regularly restocked case of Bimbo sweets and other goods they couldn’t find elsewhere.

Hernandez started with two cashiers in a single suite at the commercial center called Casino Square.

Today the M-shaped strip mall is like a global food court, each restaurant with its own speciality: gyros, pho, Mexican roast chicken, birria, fresh tortillas and teriyaki. There are other small businesses and services, like a Western boot store, a Spanish-speaking chiropractor’s office, a Spanish-speaking church, a Spanish-speaking shipping company, a coin-op laundry, beauty salons and a Subway franchise.

Los Gavilanes now occupies six suites as a bakery, butcher shop, convenience store, grocery market and juice bar with about 50 employees. Hernandez had his eyes on further expansion after a neighboring business closed recently.

“My family (and) my employees rely on the progress,” Hernandez said.

The market is a hub for south Everett, the more diverse half of a city where 16.5 percent of the population identifies as Latino. Los Gavilanes is the kind of place that can sell out of 4,000 tamales on Christmas, which it did last year.

“Thanks to the community, we’ve had to expand,” said Tony Hernandez, Felipe Hernandez’s son, who runs the store.

Now, its future at 209 E. Casino Road, along with a lot of places around the Casino Road and Evergreen Way intersection, is in jeopardy.

That looming clacking in the distance? It’s the sound of light rail development.

Hear the train a-coming

Voters approved the measure known as ST3 in 2016, extending Link light rail 16 miles with six stations — and a seventh if money was secured — from Lynnwood to downtown Everett.

The target date for full service is 2037, though it may not reach downtown Everett until 2041, depending on funds.

A group of elected officials and a group of residents from Snohomish County, along with the agency’s staff, have steered some of the decisions about where the stations and track could get built.

Most recently in June, the Sound Transit board approved further evaluation of a number of different stations and track alignments. Some locations only had two options, such as the Ash Way station. But others, including the Evergreen Way and Highway 526 station near Casino Road, had several alternatives.

Years remain before the Sound Transit board selects which station and alignment to build, then years more until service begins.

That leaves a lot of time to consider designs that could affect buildings and properties. Maybe a path just needs easements for elevated track. Or bulldozers could be the chosen option.

Casino Square is just one of three sites being reviewed for the Evergreen Way and Highway 526 station. Its proximity to a Fred Meyer shopping center, Community Transit and Everett Transit bus routes, as well as being south of the highway, make it appealing .

Other site options are north of the highway near Beverly Lane behind a dialysis center and a new apartment complex, and along East Casino Road just east of Evergreen Way.

Alvaro Guillen, executive director of south Everett community organization Connect Casino Road, for months has sought to convince Sound Transit’s decision makers to spare Casino Square. One of his letters to the board had signatures from 396 residents, 20 service providers and about 20 business owners, he said.

“My team and I have spoken about this project with hundreds of people who live and work in the neighborhood,” Guillen wrote to the board in June. “This place is the home of some of county’s largest groups of Spanish-speaking households, low-income families, and undocumented people. Many of the people I spoke with are used to being marginalized and left out of public processes, and their experiences have taught them that powerful people will do what they want regardless of community input.”

Those pleas got the attention of Snohomish County’s elected representatives on the Sound Transit board. In June, the board removed a preferred alternative designation from any of the Evergreen Way and Highway 526 station options.

But that alone isn’t likely to stop displacement for many businesses at Casino Square and others in the immediate area.

It’s rolling round the bend

Changes that accompany light rail’s arrival are apparent in Seattle. New housing, often apartments and townhomes, soared near many of the stations.

Density near a frequent transit line such as light rail helps city and county officials hit population growth and housing targets.

Even Snohomish County, still roughly a year away from the first service with paying passengers at stations in Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace, has seen new apartment buildings erected and proposed.

Changes in Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace could be an omen of what’s ahead for areas around the six stations between Lynnwood and Everett.

Buildings, often one story, have been razed in both cities near the stations. In their footprint, apartment complexes with ground floor commercial space get constructed as investors leverage tax incentives for multifamily housing close to light rail which, at its planned peak frequency, will come every 4 to 6 minutes.

Light rail development can come at the expense of whatever and whoever is in the path. The service can give people the opportunity to ditch driving from Everett to work in Seattle or elsewhere along the line that eventually will cross Lake Washington into Bellevue and Redmond. That gives people mobility options that can be less costly than vehicle ownership.

But it could displace people who, for years, have owned, rented or leased property.

That worries some people, including Alderwood Community Church and Mill Creek Foursquare Church leaders and members. Hundreds of people wore bright orange and teal T-shirts urging Sound Transit to spare its churches from displacement during the agency’s in-person open house in February. They’ve consistently commented on the alternatives study process to echo that request.

Near Casino Road, Los Gavilanes and other businesses that serve Spanish-speaking customers could need new spaces. But many of the business owners, who do not own the property, worry they’ll be priced out of Everett or business entirely.

“This collection of established businesses is irreplicable — to leave Casino Square would basically mean to leave Everett,” Addictive Ink Tattoo Shop owner Patricia Torralba wrote in a Connect Casino Road press release in April.

A little further down the line

Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin, who is on the Sound Transit board, often has warned that businesses in Casino Square’s four separate buildings face displacement regardless of where the light rail station goes.

If the board chooses the commercial strip’s property, then it’s directly affected. If it goes across Evergreen Way or Highway 526 and the property owners sell, those businesses could be forced out. Even if neither happens, leases could rise as land around the station rises in value.

“We can expect massive development happening in our Everett area prior to a station,” Franklin said at the Dec. 8, 2021 council meeting.

Franklin tasked city staff with crafting a 10-year plan about businesses in the Westmont-Holly-Evergreen-Boeing area they call the WHEB Triangle, which includes Casino Road. One of the goals is to preserve local businesses.

An idea under consideration by city staff is securing affordable commercial space, Economic Development Director Dan Eernissee told the council at its meeting March 1. The hope is the city could lead the work to find new space, then guide the creation of something similar to a community land trust, only for commercial property.

City leaders already have a possible location: Walter E. Hall Park.

The 137-acre park has fields for baseball, lacrosse, soccer and softball, as well as an 18-hole public golf course, playground and skate park. It’s just over 1 mile west of Evergreen Way along West Casino Road, and a similar distance east from Airport Road where another light rail station location is being considered.

In 2017, the council and then-Mayor Ray Stephenson formed a committee to revise its 20-year “visions and values” document called Envision Everett 2037. The committee’s report made several recommendations for arts, culture, recreation, civic engagement, crime, substance abuse, economic development, education, homelessness, housing and transportation.

One recommendation was to evaluate if Everett could sustain two city-owned golf courses. It it can’t, the city should redevelop one course for other recreational uses, the report concluded.

In 2019, the City Council discussed the two city-owned golf courses and potentially redeveloping Walter Hall. Their debate waas framed by three central questions:

• Are golf courses the best and highest use of the properties?

• How should golf be prioritized against other city recreational opportunities?

• Is there a desire to explore other land use options for either course?

With light rail stations nearby to the east and west, the park property could be ripe for redevelopment into housing, retail and newer park and recreation facilities.

Redevelopment of Walter Hall Park likely would require the city to find a company to construct the mixed-use building and any adjacent park space. The city could lure such development through selling some of the property or a low-cost or no-cost lease, similar to what was offered to Bezos Academy at the city’s Everett Station in exchange for tuition-free early childhood care and education.

A new city-backed location is enticing for the Hernandez family, if the price is right.

But there are concerns about moving tens of thousands of dollars of equipment — coolers, mixers, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems — some of which were custom built. Felipe and Tony Hernandez said they estimated moving to cost up to $500,000, in part because they could be forced to buy new equipment that wouldn’t be up to code in a new location.

When Los Gavilanes redid its meat area, including new display coolers, it was about $250,000, Tony Hernandez said. One quote to move a single oven, of which they have several, came in around $50,000, he said.

Felipe Hernandez said he supports light rail coming and projects a bump in business once the stations are built in Everett. He can’t imagine leaving. He hopes he won’t have to.

“Our customers are Casino Road,” Tony Hernandez said.

Ben Watanabe: 425-339-3037; bwatanabe@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @benwatanabe.