A roll of the dice for local businesses

Entrepreneurs on Jaffa Road have mixed feelings about the opening of the light rail.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
reuben mikes place bar_581 (photo credit: Courtesy)
reuben mikes place bar_581
(photo credit: Courtesy)
"People thought I was crazy,” says Ya’acov Levi, the owner of Na’aman Bakery on the corner of Davidka Square right next to a Jerusalem light rail stop. He recalls the reactions of his friends when he first decided to open a branch of his cafe bakery. “I already had a wine store on the other side of Davidka that had been open for four years. It was a very hard period that I went through when the light rail was being built. People didn’t come, and we lost money. I lost 50 percent of my business,” he reveals.
But Levy saw opportunity in the fact that the municipality believed that some 30,000 people would disembark from the train at the Davidka. And what better to serve those people than a cup of coffee and a pastry? For years, shops along Jaffa Road have been suffering from a massive downturn in business associated with the building of the light rail. Not only the digging up of the road caused havoc, but the transfer of bus lines to Agrippas and Hanevi’im Street took away a great deal of walk-in customers. Now, with the light rail finally scheduled to start operation, the business owners and managers are looking to the future. Some have even taken a gamble on Jaffa Road, hoping that the new railway and the depressed real estate could prove a potent combination for making money.
Michael Levinson is a 45-year-old American who came to Israel in 1990. An Orthodox Jew from Portland, Oregon, he lives in Ezrat Torah near the Belz synagogue on the northwestern side of the city. He has tried his hand at several businesses in Israel.
“I worked in Herzliya and Ramat Gan, and then I had a furniture store in Florentin in Tel Aviv, but unfortunately I opened it a month before the intifada,” he says. “I was selling high-end American imported furniture, and the business didn’t work out.”
Three years ago Levinson decided to open a pizza place opposite the shuk on Jaffa Road. “I knew about the light rail, and we tried to build the costs associated with it into our budget.”
Eventually Levinson decided to change his pizza place into a lottery shop a year and a half ago.
“Look, the train doesn’t affect my business that much. If you bring me more people, I will make more sales. Currently about 85 percent of my sales are repeat customers. I suppose a 50% increase in business is a good estimate of what will change. I haven’t seen too many changes in businesses next door to me.
They have been here for two generations, but they saw a big hit to their revenue and bottom line. The reality is that for a lot of these people in the shuk, it will be a bigger change. The shuk is fundamentally changing, and the smart money knows it. It has gone from being a place where people buy commodities to a destination that people want to get to. The opening of the train will bring greater access to that destination,” he says.
Levinson is very upbeat about his prospects and the light rail in general. “I think that any municipality, including Jerusalem, has to roll the dice on these kinds of projects. There was tremendous opposition in Portland when they built the light rail, and in the years. It is a family business that has been in the same spot since 1970.
“We have had seven bad years because of this railroad. All the pedestrian traffic went to Agrippas. There aren’t taxis, nothing. No one comes. Our customers can’t even find a way to get here,” she says.
She estimates that the store has lost more than 50% of its business. “We aren’t okay here. Our debts grow.
About 250 businesses have closed on Jaffa Road in recent years. We are barely hanging on.”
The prospect of the light rail’s opening to the public doesn’t inspire Ashur much.
“I want to believe that the train will start and the customers will return. But unless the train is throwing out dollars, it will take time to recoup our losses.”
A few doors down at a branch of the organic food store Anise, Shimshon Cohen, 65, is the manager of the store. He a tall man who has a friendly banter with his customers.
But when it comes to talking about the light rail, he is downright gloomy. “It has affected us a lot. We have lost 40% of our business. We want it to return to the way it was,” he says.
The problems mostly began in the last few years. “We had all this construction for years, but it is the last three years that have been the worst. I don’t believe that it will be okay, even with the train running.”
Yigal Benita, who came to Israel from France nine years ago, is the manager of a branch of Roberto’s clothing. Like Cohen and others, he has found the situation intolerable. “It is impossible to work. We saw a very serious fall in revenues.
People can’t even find a way to get into the city to find the store.”
Nonetheless, he is slightly hopeful. “The train should bring more people. We really hope, with God’s help, that the business will survive.”
Levi at Na’aman is counting more on his courage to wade into the risky environment.
“The municipality estimates that 30,000 people a day will get off the train at Davidka Square. I saw the potential. I renovated this place, which used to be a bank, and I think it will be good.”
One problem he faced was that Davidka Square was supposed to be renovated around a design by famed Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta, which would have eclipsed the new Na’aman cafe. Levi was one of those who opposed the new design for the square. “In the beginning we won against the changes to Davidka. But it was a tragic waste of money for the city, and the end result is a big mess with a fountain that doesn’t work.”
One theme that is common among all the business owners on Jaffa Road is that they have not received support from the city. Most of the owners agreed that one thing the city should have done was at least give them discounts on their property tax. Ashur says, “We have received nothing from the government.” Cohen thinks that “We aren’t important to them. There was just talk.”
The reality of the changes to Jaffa Road can be seen as one goes down the hill from Davidka Square. There are new shops that took advantage of the low prices to get in on the cheap.
One major investor has been the Jerusalem icon Mike’s Place.
With 16 years of tradition in Jerusalem, the bar was forced to close three years ago. But Reuben Beiser saw promise at a location on Jaffa Road next to The Village Green restaurant opposite The Coffee Bean. He took a gamble, working with the owners of the original place that had relocated to Tel Aviv, and he opened a franchise in Jerusalem.
“Because of the construction for the light rail, it was hard to find locations with a long-term lease. Most owners were looking to sell, and a lot of businesses changed hands. No one wanted to give businesses a five-year lease,” he says.
After he opened the place in October, he says there were lawyers who came around suggesting a class action law suit against the city. “From my point of view I didn’t suffer. A lot of others did in a very real way, and their needs should be addressed appropriately… We are very happy with our location.
We get a lot of foot traffic, we are on the beaten path. With the train running, people are discovering how nice downtown Jerusalem is. It’s peaceful here; you can enjoy yourself. It feels like Europe.”
The light rail has transformed Jerusalem. Many family businesses have been harmed, and most of those interviewed feel that business has declined by more than 50%. However, it seems that many entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the opportunities to create new businesses on Jaffa Road. One thing almost everyone agrees on is that finally, after so many years, the customers may return when the light rail starts running.