WATTS : Rent Relief OKd at Shopping Center

Sixteen small businesses in the Martin Luther King Jr. Shopping Center have been granted three months of rent relief by the city Community Redevelopment Agency in an effort to help them recover from the April-May riots. Each of the businesses was damaged in the riots, as were larger stores at the center, including The Boys market, which is expected to reopen as a Food 4 Less warehouse outlet in December.

In May, sales at the shopping center were down nearly 100% from the same month a year before, according to a CRA report. Sales were down about 30% in June compared to one year before, and about 20% in July.

Independently owned businesses and privately owned franchises in the center will receive the rental assistance. Among the recipients are Pioneer Chicken and Burger King franchises, a video store, a doughnut shop, a hair salon and a beauty supply store.

Merchants who were unable to pay rent during May, June and July will be allowed to forgo the payments. Businesses that paid rent during that period will be given three months credit.

“It’s going to help out a lot,” said Thomas Roberts, owner of M and T Donuts. “Our sales were down at least 25% because of the fact that The Boys closed. I didn’t think about closing, but we struggled through. We’re living from day to day.”

The rent relief plan will save each of the tenants $131,406, or $43,802 for each of the three months, said CRA spokesman Marc Littman.

The agency will use funds from its Bunker Hill project area--which it uses to pay debt service on the shopping center--to make up for the lost rental income, Littman said.

Since May, the CRA has spent $379,043 to help repair riot-related damage at the shopping center.