Business owners are saying the FIFA World Cup is hurting — not helping — the Chinatown-International District (CID). One advocate said the mayor has turned the CID into a “human dumping ground.”
At a press conference on Wednesday, community leaders said sales in the CID are down as much as 22%, even as World Cup crowds pack Pioneer Square and the waterfront just blocks away.
“There’s no question that the very significant benefits that are coming to our city through foot traffic, people attending the games, the watch parties, that that benefit has not been, I think, as evenly spread as, as would be ideal, as we would like,” Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson told KIRO Newsradio Wednesday. “We have this game concentrated at the stadium, we have watch parties in that kind of downtown core and so getting people to really branch out and patronize businesses around the city, you know, it’s a lift.”…