Is Kent ready for an international district?

Business owners are inspired

It doesn’t look like much more than a run-down East Hill strip mall, but passersby who dare pull into the long parking lot along 104th Avenue Southeast just north of Southeast 240th Street will find a portal to a handful of foreign countries.

Despite its exterior, the strip mall holds a wealth of culinary creations, groceries, clothing and other products and services offered by business owners from India, Vietnam, Korea and the Ukraine. And the mall’s diverse set of tenants are now joining forces to make their distinctive offerings more widely known.

Their vision is to turn the area into Kent’s own “International District,” said Harpreet Gill, the owner of East Hill Indian eatery Punjab Sweets, who is spearheading the effort, and whose shop is a tenant in the mall. She has spent the last several months concocting the idea, organizing fellow business owners and soliciting partnerships with city officials and business organizations.

“Because (the strip mall) is not very appealing, people don’t really come, but we have such wonderful services and products that we offer,” Gill said. “The diversity of this area really reflects the overall community. I think if we put it together right, even people from far away will come.”

The effort will start in the immediate area — the mall in which Gill and many other ethnic owners do business. She already has had meetings with the other owners in the area to discuss the steps they need to take. The first step: beautification.

“This area isn’t very pretty visually on the outside,” Gill said. “In our first meeting, we discussed things like power-washing, cleaning up the area, getting flower pots for outside and maybe even getting signs that match.”

The second step, she said, will be a block party-like festival, tentatively called the “Fall International Festival” and scheduled for sometime in September. Gill said the strip mall businesses would set up shop closer to the street for a day, drawing attention to their goods with music, decorations and other festivities.

“Right now, we’re just trying to figure our permits and what it would take to set that up,” she said.

Rita Kumar, 42, the Indian owner of the strip mall’s Ravi Video & Grocery, said she’s wholly behind the idea. Business is good at her store, which offers a large selection of Indian grocery goods, but she thinks Gill’s concept could significantly help.

“We have a small plaza, but we have all the international shops here,” Kumar said. “A lot of people don’t know that all of this is here, so hopefully this will help let them know.”

Gill said if all goes well, she’ll plan to continue networking with other East Hill business owners outside the mall. She said there are many diverse offerings all over that area, and the ultimate goal will be to create an East Hill business partnership to connect them and bolster their exposure and marketing potential. She hopes the partnership will someday operate like the Kent Downtown Partnership.

They’re on the right track to that goal, said KDP Executive Director Jacquie Alexander, though the downtown partnership has a bit of a head start. The partnership was founded in 1992, as part of a national program called the National Trust of Historic Preservation. The program provided the partnership’s initial structural and committee guidelines, and now it has become a smoothly running independent organization with operating committees and many business members dedicated to maintaining a thriving downtown.

“I think so much of (our success) has to do with our board and their sincere interest in revitalizing our downtown and truly turning it around,” Alexander said. “The energy they bring is truly instrumental. In addition to the board, it’s our volunteers. We only have one and a half paid staff members, and everything else we do is done by volunteers.”

With that same passion and spirit of volunteer service, she thinks Gill and the other East Hill business owners could create a similarly successful partnership. And she said the downtown partnership would be interested in working with them in the future.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Alexander said. “We have even talked about having a promotional event to celebrate international businesses, sort of a downtown international fair. We would certainly like to work with them on something like that.”

Kent Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Andrea Keikkala offered similar support.

“The Kent Chamber of Commerce is excited that the East Hill businesses are in the process of forming a partnership and international district,” she said. “We hope that we can work together for the good of the business community in Kent and look forward to collaborating with East Hill businesses and the future International District.”

Additional support already has come from Mayor Suzette Cooke, who attended the East Hill business owners’ first meeting. Gill said Cooke offered the group advice on ways to jump start their organization efforts.

“The mayor talked to us about how everyone needs to get together on this,” Gill said. “You can tell she’s excited and very willing to help out, but it’s up to us to get things started.”

Despite the enthusiasm and support, Gill knows the challenge she’s up against getting her concept off the ground.

“It’s a lot of leg work, and it’s a little daunting, but you just have to try,” she said. “I’m very excited about it, and I think we can make it work.”

Kumar agrees that with Gill’s leadership, the international district and even an East Hill partnership may become a reality.

“It will be difficult, but I think we can do it,” she said. “Harpreet is very ambitious to do something, and I’m with her, and I think others are very interested as well.”

Gill invites business owners interested in being a part of the effort to contact her at Punjab Sweets by calling 253-859-3236.