Business is good in Covington.

Well, at least new business is good. In recent months a number of new ventures have filled vacant store fronts in the downtown core or are slated to open by the end of the year.

Airstream, for example, opened in May on the former site of a satellite car dealership owned by Kent-based Bowen Scarff Ford. The site was vacant for less than a year and that’s the good news for Covington.

Covington City Manager Derek Matheson told the Reporter in May there are two benefits to Airstream’s arrival in the city.

“No. 1, we’ll have some economic activity in a highly visible location in the city,” Matheson said. “No. 2, the dealership will generate sales tax, utility tax and other miscellaneous taxes. Any kind of auto related dealership is a real benefit to any local government.”

Better yet, Airstream will draw from what has been described to Matheson as “a very loyal clientele” that will draw buyers in from not just the immediate area but the entire region.

There’s been talk that the dealership could help attract a hotel to Covington.

“There’s a lot of interest in the community in a hotel and I’ve heard it for the four years I’ve been here,” Matheson said. “There isn’t a hotel in this part of the county, so, even out of town family and friends have to stay in Auburn, Kent, or more likely near SeaTac.”

And a hotel could be a boon for neighbor Pacific Raceways, located just five minutes west on state Route 18 from downtown Covington, which hosts the National Hot Rod Association every summer as well as many other events that draws racers and spectators from across the Northwest and Canada.

For now, that’s a concept, but there’s a number of other big things happening in Covington that are quite real.

In recent months IHOP, UTop-It, Wild Birds Unlimited and others have opened along with Airstream, while companies such as Big 5, Big Lots!, Pink Elephant Car Wash and Firestone.

AT&T Mobility is also in the process of locating a store in downtown Covington, according Anne Marshall, a spokeswoman for the telecommunications company. All of the other four major cell phone companies have stores, either indirect resellers or corporate run, in Covington.

“I don’t have a date yet,” Marshall said. “There are plans to open it. AT&T does recognize that it’s a growing area and wants to put a store there to better serve customers.”

Community Development Director Richard Hart said one of the city’s consultants identified the health care industry as a potential growth area which explains why two new medical facilities are planned for downtown.

“Covington geographically is placed in an excellent location in southeast King County,” Hart said. “People have just over the years been used to coming to Covington for quality health care.”

Nationally, Hart noted, the health care industry has weathered the recession better than others.

“Looking at communities across the country, health care has been expanding  and coming back at a more rapid rate than other sectors of the economy,” Hart said. “I’m not surprised that both MultiCare and Valley have decided to get into expansion mode.”

Rob Hendrickson, Covington’s finance director, said it’s hard to tell what kind of impact these new businesses will have until they’ve become established.

Meanwhile, sales tax numbers provided by the city in May have offered some interesting statistics, even if Hendrickson is still trying to figure out exactly what they mean.

“Sales tax for the last several years has defied any sense or reason,” Hendrickson wrote in an email. “They just kind of come in as they will. Take Airstream for example, we have no way of knowing how their sales will go and how much sales tax they will generate. About the only thing we know is that there will be some impact we just don’t know the degree.”

In February, businesses in Covington generated $199,016 in sales tax revenue, down 5.4 percent from the same period in 2010 but up 1.5 percent from January.

Construction was up 18.4 percent from 2010 but retail sales was down 5.2 percent, in large part due to Bowen Scarff closing its doors, as well as Home Depot and Walmart posting losses of more than 10 percent.

On the flip side, Costco and Fred Meyer had increases, seeing 2.3 percent and 5.7 percent upticks in revenue respectively while food and restaurant establishments also went up 2.7 percent, in part due to the opening of IHOP.

Hart said he couldn’t entirely explain the increase in activity in the city’s small business sector.

“I know for a fact that Ashton has really done a good job of actively seeking tenants for their vacant spaces,” Hart said. “They do a good job because they have a lot of good contacts regionally

I think a lot of that is attributed to them as an active marketer for businesses in their space.”

Ashton Capital, a Renton based developer, owns the plaza where Big 5 and Big Lots! will open in the former site of QFC, as well as Covington Esplanade, the site of Home Depot.

Plus Ashton owns a piece of property next to Covington Elementary School, which the Kent School District eventually hopes to move and sell that property.

“That’s one big property (owned by Ashton) that the city is very interested in,” Hart said. “We’re working with the school district on some documents that would give us the first right of refusal when they get ready to sell (the elementary school site) three to five years down the road. The school district has been very cooperative with us on that.”

The arrival of new businesses in Covington as well as the filling of vacant storefronts has been an organic process in the past six months but that doesn’t mean the city isn’t deliberate about trying to encourage economic development.

Hart explained that the city’s Economic Development Committee spends quite a bit of time discussing the issue.

“They do a lot of debating, they’re asking this philosophical question: is the city conducive to and encouraging economic development?,” Hart said. “There are a couple of people on CEDC that think the city doesn’t encourage economic development and I disagree. All this activity and development shows that people want to invest in Covington. This shows that we’ve changed the culture and changed the mentality and that we are development friendly.”

Hart added that developers see Covington as a gateway to southeast King County.

“They see a future,” he said. “We serve more than the people of Covington. We offer something to residents beyond the city. We have to continue to capitalize on that.”

And by capitalizing on that business can continue to be good in Covington.