Business at the Kefa Cafe has declined 80% since construction of the Purple Line began, owner Abeba Tsegaye said.
For nearly 30 years, the neighborhood gathering spot has benefited from heavy foot traffic and easy parking along Silver Spring’s Bonifant Street.
The cafe, along with more than 240 other businesses, is part of a once-thriving neighborhood served by the nonprofit Fenton Village, which community activist Karen Roper founded 15 years ago to market the area as a “destination” of eclectic shops. The nonprofit still exists, but many of its member businesses began to struggle as work got underway on the Purple Line in 2017.
Construction crews began ripping up sidewalks, blocking access to street parking and closing roads. This upheaval — combined with the lingering effects of the pandemic — has threatened Tsegaye’s business and dozens of others in Fenton Village.
“I don’t know how we’ll be able to pay rent this month,” Tsegaye said. “We just go day by day.”
Proponents of the Purple Line — which will run through Silver Spring and Fenton Village to connect Bethesda and New Carrollton in Prince George’s County — have said it will be an economic boon for the region.
The line is slated to open in late 2027. In the meantime, shop owners in Fenton Village, and elsewhere along the rail corridor, say they’re not getting enough support to make up for their losses.
“We really feel invisible,” Tsegaye said.
A neighborhood cafe
At the Kefa Cafe, hundreds of photos of customers’ children, many now grown, cover the wall next to the checkout counter. Other customers have contributed photos of their cats. Tsegaye talks about these people and pets as if they’re family.
But the cafe Wednesday at lunchtime was mostly empty — a far cry from the crowds that used to show up. Four customers stopped by over the course of 45 minutes. Many people, Tsegaye said, don’t want to deal with the obstacles that stand between them and her coffee and pastries.
State and local lawmakers have tried to help, pushing for additional signs that declare “businesses are open.”
But the intensity of construction in the surrounding area can make some streets and shops appear closed, business owners said, likely confusing drivers. Sufficient help, in the form of state grants, can be hard to come by.
Help from the state?
Decreased revenue at the Kefa Cafe appears to have limited the amount of state assistance for which Tsegaye can qualify.
The state Department of Transportation has determined grant amounts based on a business’ size, including its average annual sales over the last three years. But Fenton Village business owners said that construction has been hurting business for more than twice as long.
Tsegaye said the $2,500 grant she received is less than a month’s rent and “an insult to us.”
Roper said the grant process has felt “so unfair.”
The state has allocated $4 million over four years for businesses in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties to cushion the blow from Purple Line construction. The plan is to award grants over three rounds each year to small businesses within a quarter-mile of a Purple Line track. The application period for the third round this year begins Oct. 6.
“We do realize that this is not a full solution for any business,” said Jaclyn Hartman, an assistant secretary in the Maryland Department of Transportation. “We are just trying to have some kind of impact … and help them survive during this construction."
Apply and apply again
In the most recent round of grants, more than 40 businesses received $5,000 to $40,000. More than half of the businesses were in Silver Spring, but Mike Bailey’s was not among them.
Bailey, who owns Ebony Barbers along Bonifant Street, said his revenue has declined 75% in recent years, and he has three fewer barbers compared to preconstruction years.
Construction has discouraged potential walk-in customers who don’t want to navigate sidewalk closures or look for parking they might never find.
“I’m not gonna blame it all on the construction, but along with COVID, which hit at the same time, it’s been a big hit to us,” Bailey said.
Bailey sought funding in the first round of grants, but the department denied his application. Discouraged, he didn’t apply for the second round.
He said he learned only this week — six months after he applied — that the department denied his initial application because it was incomplete. He’s going to try again in the third round.
“I’m definitely going to be ready for that one,” he said. “I’m gonna submit it early.”
A question of fairness
Hartman, of the transportation department, said business owners should soon hear about changes to the grant program, including a possible expansion of eligibility to businesses established from Jan. 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023.
State and local lawmakers have echoed their constituents’ frustrations over the grant program.
“It has taken an inordinate amount of advocacy by members of our community ... to get the state to this place of really listening about these impacts,” Montgomery County Council President Kate Stewart said.
She added that state transportation officials have been receptive to feedback about the program and said that, in future grant rounds, they may consider allowing businesses to cite revenue losses dating back more than three years to account for extended revenue loss.
In the meantime, Roper said, Purple Line construction has damaged the neighborhood brand she and others worked so hard to build.
“The whole thing we marketed was the area,” she said. “Come to Fenton Village.”
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