{"id":405,"date":"2016-04-29T05:08:32","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T09:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=405"},"modified":"2016-05-09T08:27:03","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T12:27:03","slug":"community-fights-small-business-squeeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2016\/04\/29\/community-fights-small-business-squeeze\/","title":{"rendered":"SMALL BUSINESS SQUEEZE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Patti<\/a>Patti Wright and her son own Pop’s Market on East Grace Street and work to use community strength to drive equitable downtown development. Photo by Will Hogge.<\/em><\/p>\n

PATTI WRIGHT SMILES as she remembers: It was like yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would line up for hours just for the chance the meet the\u00a0\u2018real\u2019 Santa<\/a>.\u00a0He had an earpiece and his Snow Queen would tell him kids\u2019 names. Miller and Rhoads was at the heart of downtown culture then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, the iconic retail giant took up a full city block from Broad Street to Grace Street. \u201cThe store was part of the community,\u201d says Patti.<\/p>\n

Allen Rothert, a long-time events planner, remembers the downtown cornerstone as well. \u201cIt was a downtown anchor that was all about family. You could call them up and say you needed them to pick a gift for someone and send it to them. That was it because they already knew you and the person you bought the present for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Miller<\/a>

Miller and Rhoads used to be a cornerstone of the thriving downtown culture. Photo Courtesy of Dementi Studios<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

That was over 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

Miller and Rhoads limped through the 1980’s until finally closing its doors for good in 1990. Patti, following the wave of many others living in the city, moved to the suburbs.<\/p>\n

Rothert shakes his head thinking about it. \u201cThe suburban malls in places like Willow Lawn doomed downtown and the white flight to the suburbs<\/a> made sure that retailers followed them out of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Richmond population shrank steadily through the turn of the century. The 2000 census revealed Richmond\u2019s population to be the lowest since 1942, when World War II was decimating populations everywhere.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today.<\/p>\n

Patti sits in a booth at Pop\u2019s Market\u2014a restaurant on Grace Street next door to the old Miller and Rhoads building. She and her son Josh are its owners.<\/p>\n

Like many other \u2018empty-nesters\u2019<\/a> of the baby boomer generation, Patti, 63, came back home. \u201cNone of us needed suburban space anymore,” she says, “and everyone felt comfortable coming back because development made the area safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She moved to a fitting location\u2014the recently rebuilt Miller and Rhoads building. The site is now home to a 250-room hotel and 130 condominiums.<\/p>\n

\"Apartments<\/a>

Apartments and a hotel now inhabiting the Miller Rhoads Building have brought people back downtown. Photo by Will Hogge<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The once vibrant heart of downtown Richmond was on the upswing again. The 2010 census marked the first population growth in Richmond in four decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can hear the excitement in her voice as Patti talks about revitalizing her home. \u201cWe wanted to help the neighborhood grow again. We had all these people coming back but nothing was happening in terms of retail<\/a>. We wanted to help change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite nearly $1.15 billion<\/a> in downtown development investments, it wasn\u2019t easy to get started.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t get a loan from the city or a bank. We used all [of my late husband\u2019s life insurance] money to fund it. We had to take a leap of faith because there\u2019s no investment money for community startup,\u201d Patti says.<\/p>\n

Businesses were indeed coming back<\/a> to meet the population growth, but not the ones that made the Broad and East Grace Street area so special to people like Patti in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge or established businesses get all the loans,\u201d explains Patti (interview below). \u201cThe fear is that retail here will become a ‘big box’ environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/Patti-on-Small-Businesses.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

The city is trying to financially meet many pressing issues, says City Councilwoman Kathy Graziano. \u201cGrowth comes through development right now with the fastest return, and this means more resources for schools, poverty alleviation and city services down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since opening shop, Patti and Josh have indeed seen these benefits. \u201cRestaurants like Pasture, Food Dog and Julep\u2019s gave credibility to Grace Street redevelopment, and we need some of these big stores\u2014everybody is thrilled that Pottery Barn is coming. We are finally in a grown-up, beautiful space again that is walk-able. The community is coming closer together again like it did before as people are meeting and forming these relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

The neighborhood is far from perfect, however. Empty storefronts still line<\/a> the once mighty Grace and Broad Streets in the neighborhood\u2014a reminder of the work still to be done. But when it comes to community needs, the city is slow to respond.<\/p>\n

\"Empty<\/a>

Empty storefronts still hold back the downtown revitalization. Photo by Will Hogge<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe city has to talk about everything for 10 years with community strategies because they don\u2019t see the short-term motivation to invest in us,\u201d says Patti, with a touch of frustration.<\/p>\n

Graziano acknowledges the difficulty of this balancing act for the city but stresses the importance of looking at the progress being made.<\/p>\n

According to Patti, there is no shortage of community-based startups that can fill the void if given the chance. \u201cGrowth is limited because the city plans are not in tune with real needs. The money is here. We just need support.\u201d For now, that support is coming from within the community.<\/p>\n

This is what helped Pop\u2019s Market survive its first few years. The concierge from the next-door hotel, the booth operator at the convention center, and front-desk employees around the neighborhood marketed their business for them. This is the strength of a community.<\/p>\n

\"Patti<\/a>

Patti Wright is committed to provide the community with the same support that helped her business get off the ground. Photo by Will Hogge<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe need to pull each other up,” Patti says, with a broad smile. “Neighbors helping neighbors will help downtown thrive\u2014not the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The community crumbled years ago. Now it is back and as strong as ever. They are slowly becoming unified\u2014for the preservation of their identity and the good of the city as a whole.<\/p>\n

As we talk, a young student enters Pop\u2019s Market. Patti knows him by name\u2014Terrence. He lives in the neighborhood and is raising money for a school trip to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Patti, of course, welcomes him in.<\/p>\n

By Will Hogge<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patti Wright and her son own Pop’s Market on East Grace Street and work to use community strength to drive equitable downtown development. Photo by Will Hogge. PATTI WRIGHT SMILES as she remembers: It was like yesterday. \u201cPeople would line up for hours just for the chance the meet the\u00a0\u2018real\u2019 Santa.\u00a0He had an earpiece and Read more about SMALL BUSINESS SQUEEZE<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2064,"featured_media":404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53586],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rva-in-transition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/Entrance-Sign.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-6x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2064"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}