Mark Dundore is a go-getter. He has a day job at Sealaska, runs his own IT consulting business and owns two shops in Lemon Creek. Now, he’s trying to get another business in downtown Douglas off the ground — The Douglas Outpost, a market and coffee stop.
Dundore found the perfect commercial space at 1112 3rd Street, right on the main drag. Well, perfect except for one thing: it doesn’t have off-street parking.
The City and Borough of Juneau’s land use code requires a business such as Dundore’s to have three off-street parking spots.
“They can’t operate the business until they get these parking spots,” city planner Tim Felstead said in a phone interview Wednesday.
But that’s not stopping Dundore.
Instead of operating the business inside the roughly 800 square feet of commercial space as Dundore would like to do, he takes the business outside.
Every weeknight, he moves stainless steel shelves loaded with grocery items and snacks outside under the building’s covered patio. He sits outside, sells some merchandise, takes cash or runs credit cards outside on a machine that’s plugged inside.
“It has a long cable,” he said.
Dundore started The Douglas Outpost because he saw a need. There’s no place to buy groceries in Douglas. The convenience store at the gas station Douglas Depot was a popular local spot for coffee, but shut down two and a half years ago. The closest place to buy amenities is at Breeze In, which is near the bridge.
Dundore lives in North Douglas now, but he used to live in downtown Douglas.
“We were on 5th Street for a year. I’d be walking along 2nd Street with my wife and say, ‘I’m thirsty. Let’s get water.’ And my wife would say, ‘You can walk back 10 blocks to get water because there’s nothing to buy,’ and I was like, ‘That’s ridiculous,’” Dundore said.
Or they’d be grilling on Sandy Beach and run out of hot dogs. Dundore said it’s a “half-hour round trip” to get to the nearest grocery store, so he thought, “If I have a way of fixing this, I’m going to do it.”
He said a small market and coffee stop would likely appeal to many groups of people.
“There are people with dogs that need treats. There are hockey players that don’t have any snacks or coffee. There are fishermen that need coffee,” Dundore said. “You have people who live in housing on Douglas that don’t have cars. They have to ride the bus to get any groceries.”
Eventually, Dundore wants to have refrigerator and freezer sections, serve organic coffee, chai and donuts in the morning. He has no idea how long he’ll have to keep moving shelves inside and outside.
“It could a week, it could be two weeks, it could be a month, two months. I don’t know how long it’s going to be,” he said.
Staying in line
The city acknowledges there’s ample parking for Dundore’s business.
“There is a lot of on-street parking that’s available at that location, but the land use code doesn’t allow us to count that towards their parking requirement,” planner Tim Felstead said.
The city has different rules for downtown Juneau and even for different businesses in Douglas.
“For places that have been operating over a certain number of years and the building hasn’t expanded and the use hasn’t changed hugely, their parking requirement is grandfathered in. Quite often, it’s a zero parking requirement,” he said.
Kristin Cadigan McAdoo finds the whole issue baffling. She’s the landlord of the building Dundore wants to set up shop in. She also lives on Douglas.
“Being a resident of Douglas, on-street parking is what you grow up knowing,” she said. “I wasn’t aware there was any kind of parking code because everyone on Douglas parks wherever they want.”
Cadigan McAdoo said the city has been helpful in trying to help her find nearby commercial off-street parking spots that she can ask to lease. She’s pursuing that option “to make it right with the city,” but she knows “full well no one’s ever going to park there.”
There are other options, but Felstead said none of them are timely.
He said the Community Development Department is looking at making changes to the parking requirements in the land use code, but any change would have to go through planners, a land use committee, the Planning Commission and the CBJ Assembly.
Cadigan McAdoo could also explore getting a variance, or an exception, but Felstead said those are only for “really exceptional circumstances.”
“The quickest fix is to try and find some other parking that could meet their requirement,” he said.
Even if Cadigan McAdoo can resolve the parking issue for The Douglas Outpost, she still wants to see the parking requirements changed as she thinks it’s hindering community development.
Stuck in park
For now, Mark Dundore uses the inside of the building as storage. He sets up the business outside every weeknight from 6 to 8 p.m., and on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. His real plans for The Douglas Outpost will have wait until the parking can be resolved.
Dundore isn’t as concerned with turning a profit at this point as he is with getting the business name out there.
“My biggest objective isn’t to do a lot of sales; it’s awareness, repeat customers who can get the word out. I make a few sales in the evenings, but I also work on other things,” he said.
Felstead said he wishes Dundore the best.
“I hope it works out. I think downtown Douglas is really in need of a little convenience store and somewhere that’s going to sell coffee,” he said. “But, unfortunately we’re stuck with the land use code we’ve got, and that’s what we’ve got to implement.”
• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.
Read more news:
Donor do’s and don’ts: Philantropy advisor speaks at chamber luncheon
This med school student just paddled the Inside Passage in a foldable kayak
