Family unsuccessful in plea to keep Market hardware store

The family that operates downtown Seattle's last hardware store made an unsuccessful eleventh-hour plea to Pike Place Market's governing board Tuesday, asking it to postpone the business' scheduled Sept. 30 eviction.

Rainier Hardware leases prime frontage space between the original Starbucks and the Russian bakery Piroshky.

A hardware store has been a presence there under different owners since at least the early 1970s. The Market's property manager, the Preservation and Development Authority (PDA), would like to see a more lucrative tenant occupy that space.

At Tuesday's PDA Council meeting, Anthony Yap, the son-in-law of Rainier Hardware owners Tay and Kien Ha, offered a five-year business plan that calls for serving downtown's growing population of condominium owners. A business class at Central Seattle Community College had heard about the store's plight and wrote the plan as a class project.

The Ha family also filed a discrimination complaint with the Washington state Human Rights Commission, Yap told the council. The commission confirmed that it is investigating the family's allegation that the PDA treated Tay Ha, 76, differently based on his national origin. Ha moved here from Vietnam in the 1970s and bought Rainier Hardware in 1987.

Council member Theresa Alexander, with support from council members Patrick Kerr and David Ghoddousi, proposed suspending Rainier Hardware's eviction until the commission completes its investigation.

But a majority, led by council chair Jackson Schmidt, rejected that proposal. Schmidt called the family's discrimination allegation offensive and said the commission's inquiry could drag on for more than a year.

The family isn't interested in other Market spaces the authority has offered. Yap says moving the hardware store to the basement or the alley would result in a slow death for the business.

Market officials say the council has not received applications yet from tenants seeking to move into Rainier Hardware's space.

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com