College-town atmosphere allows ‘mom-and-pop’ shops to prosper
By Richard Mulhall & Ian Klein
When local business leader and philanthropist Ron Burbick of the Burbick foundation formulated his vision for Acorn Alley in Downtown Kent, his plan focused on the success of small businesses.
He envisioned a flourishing downtown area dominated by locally owned, “mom-and-pop” businesses, and when his vision came to fruition in the spring of 2009, Acorn Alley was born.
Now, just a mere six years later, Downtown Kent remains to be the premier spot in Kent thanks to small businesses built from the ground up, just as Burbick envisioned.
The opening of Acorn Alley fueled downtown development plans and kindled the creation of many new small businesses. These locally owned businesses continue to help Acorn Alley grow and thrive and make Downtown Kent a great place to be.
“One of the unique things about our downtown is that Ron Burbick is the one who developed Acorn Alley 1 and Acorn Alley 2,” said Tom Wilke, director of economic development for the city of Kent, who took over the position in January 2015. “One of his commitments to the projects was to only lease those spaces out to small, home-grown businesses. Not national chains. And that’s what he did.”
Statement from Michelle Hartman, Vice President of Burbick Companies
“One important point that The Burbick Companies take pride in with regards to Acorn Alley is that all of the small businesses are locally owned and operated. We encourage entrepreneurship and in supporting our local community, and Acorn Alley has provided our local business people, many of whom call Kent home, the opportunity to realize their dream of owning a business. Downtown Kent has always had tremendous potential, and the potential benefit to the city is more than economic. Vibrant downtowns are important, not only for commerce, but for a sense of community, and Acorn Alley has provided both economic vitality and a true sense of community.”
Acting as a central hub in a college-oriented town like Kent, the downtown area fosters the growth and success of small businesses.
“What Ron has done is tremendous,” Wilke said. “He’s kind of created this incubator approach that’s been very successful.”
When leasing small businesses space in a small downtown area like Kent, failure rates can be exorbitantly high, with rates reaching as high 50 percent, Wilke said. Conversely, though, Wilke said Kent is seeing a high success rate among small businesses in the downtown area to the point that businesses expanding and opening second concepts.
Popped! & Kent Cheesemonger
Popped!, a Kent original popcorn shop that has enjoyed much success since it opened its doors back in 2012, has expanded since its inception, adding on a ice cream and chocolate portion to the store and doubled in size just this year.
Popped! has enjoyed continued success since 2012. With a steady increase in its customer base, Popped! has hired four additional employees.
[pullquote]“If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying a little bit, so you should always be kind of reaching for the next step,” said Gwen Rosenberg, Kent resident and owner and operator of Popped![/pullquote] “You’re always kind of reaching, you’re always kind of stretching to see if you can fill a niche in the marketplace. And I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t have the confidence that the business in general was growing and on an upswing.”
Rosenberg didn’t graduate from a business school or come from a formal business background, but her business still managed to find a niche in Acorn Alley.
Rosenberg, who has four children who currently attend school in the Kent School District, thought Downtown Kent was the perfect place to start her business because it was within walking distance of her home.
“I always thought Downtown Kent had something to offer,” Rosenberg said.
Given her lack of a business background, Rosenberg said she doesn’t have any algorithms that tell her when business is booming. Rather, Rosenberg keeps track of sales numbers and has noticed an increase in employees at Popped!
“We’re gradually hiring more and more people, so that’s another indicator we use,” Rosenberg said.
The city of Kent health inspectors and planning departments that helped Rosenberg figure out what supplies and equipment she would need to start her business pointed her in the right direction of Burbick, the man in charge of developing Acorn Alley.
Before Acorn Alley grew to what it is today, it was nothing more than a parking lot behind Main Street – an unused patch of dirt waiting to be filled.
That’s when Burbick met with Rosenberg to discuss the business proposition of moving into Acorn Alley.
“He specifically wanted locally owned businesses, which most developers aren’t interested in someone with no previous business experience,” Rosenberg said. “It’s too much of a risk.”
Burbick charged Rosenberg with the challenge, took that risk and bought into Rosenberg’s business concept and imminent success.
“As somebody who really wanted to encourage and foster a situation where you have small, locally owned businesses, it was incredible,” Rosenberg said.
Off the Wagon
Another successful business Burbick solicited was Michelle Sahr, owner and operator of Off the Wagon, which was one of the first business to open shop in Acorn Alley.
Sahr opened her business in Acorn Alley in 2009, and counter to Rosenberg’s business path, already had a business background and knew what it would take to establish a successful business in Downtown Kent.
Before creating her Off the Wagon concept, Sahr was already operating another business located in Hudson called My Little Red Wagon, a toy store targeted toward young children. Burbick and Main Street Kent, “a non-profit organization focused on the revitalization of Downtown Kent,” noticed the success of Sahr’ business in Hudson suggested Sahr move her store concept to Kent.
“I just couldn’t quite envision My Little Red Wagon being here,” Sahr said. “It just seemed like we needed something that would be more appealing to a larger range of [people], like college students.”
Sahr had rejected Burbick and Main Street Kent’s idea a few times before finally giving in and creating the idea of Off the Wagon, a store full of “fun gags, gifts, games and toys” tailored to a broader audience. She recognized that different concepts breed different results in certain locations.
Off the Wagon doubled its store size after only being open for about a year, and has experienced sales growth each year since.
“It’s been my most successful store, and I’ve had quite a few,” Sahr said. “Everything that’s happening in Kent – the whole Main Street concept that little independent businesses [can be successful].”
Sahr reiterated Wilke’s previous comments and attributed her small business’ and other small business’ success to the small-town feel of Kent.
“You come to Kent, and it’s very unique,” Sahr said. “We have unique restaurants and stories that are independents, and it’s hard to find that these days. It’s like the outdoor shopping experience, but it’s not just shopping. You can come down and eat and walk around, and you don’t even have to buy anything. It’s just a fun place to walk around.”
Although Sahr already juggles two businesses, she and her husband Matt embarked on a new business venture downtown: Kent Cheesemonger.
Operating as “a specialty shop offering artisan cheese, and all the cheese pairings such as wine, beer, crackers, dips, sauces, cured meats, olives, and more,” Kent Cheesemonger opened this year.
“We just knew this was a great place to be in Kent and long story short, just decided to open up another business here,” Sahr said.
Sahr can’t take credit for all her success in Kent, though, as the city of Kent has helped her and a plethora of other business owners in the area prosper in the college-town environment, she said.
[pullquote]“The city is actually very supportive of the businesses,” Sahr said. “They’re big fans of downtown. It’s largely their work that helped create the right environment to make this happen.”[/pullquote]
The City of Kent’s role
According to Wilke, small businesses and the city of Kent work closely together in a collaborative partnership to help each other succeed from an economic standpoint.
“The city has role to play in that in terms of we certainly encourage businesses, we put our resources into Main Street Kent for example, which does a lot to support those businesses,” Wilke said. “The Kent Area Chamber of Commerce does a lot to support those businesses, and that’s how we make our contribution through those types of things.”
The city of Kent has a revolving loan fund it uses to help small businesses in the area purchase new equipment and help them to potentially acquire new property, Wilke said. The loan fund, subsidized by a federal grant with certain provisions attached to them (i.e. Kent can loan no more than 30 percent of a total project) from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
One example of this loan fund being used is Bent Tree Coffee Roasters, a coffee shop located on North Water Street.
“They were growing so fast and their clientele was growing so fast that they needed a new roaster, so we were able to help them out by providing some funding for that through the revolving loan fund, and we loan that out at less than 2.5 percent, which is a really good deal for them.
“What we don’t want to do is replace local banks,” he said. “We want to lessen the risk of local banks, so if we provide up to 30 percent of the total funding for a project it makes [an investment] much less risky for the bank.”
As part of a federal requirement, Wilke said Kent always looks for one new full-time job to be created for every $10,000 that the city loans out.
“If someone gets a $30,000 loan, we’re going to expect three new jobs over the course of the first few years that they have the loan,” Wilke said. “The good news is out of the 10 or so loans that have been done through the program, none have defaulted so far,” Wilke said.
Wilke said the small businesses obviously benefit financially from the loans and property tax incentives, whereas the city benefits from income taxes.
“Any time a business opens up and a couple, three four jobs are created, that helps us in that way.”
Small business success also helps the city of Kent in the sense that it’s just one more reason people want to live in Kent. These businesses drives traffic to Kent and attracts people to fresh experiences.
“We’re very pro business,” Wilke said. “I don’t think when people come to Kent they’re looking for the national chains,” Wilke said. “They’re looking for something that’s unique, something that’s a little quirky at times. If you look at some of the businesses downtown, and they’re really fun. And I think that’s part of the character of Kent.”
Not only do local residents of Kent enjoy the fun, whacky, whimsical shops, restaurants and bars the city has to offer, but new families coming into town also indulge in Kent’s character.
“They become very used to that, and they seek it out now, when they come into Kent,” Wilke said. [pullquote]“I don’t think it would kill us to have an Applebee’s here some day or something like that, but I don’t think we’ll ever be a city that’s dominated by those types of chains,” Wilke said. “I think we’ll always have local businesses operating…and that’s what people look for and really enjoy in the city of Kent.”[/pullquote]
Small businesses also reap the reward of being situated in Kent because of the ongoing partnership between Kent State and the city.
“Without Kent State, we’re a relatively small city – we’re only 25,000 residents or so – but when the students come into town, we then jump up to about twice that size, and all of the sudden we have 50,000 people in town,” Wilke said. “Kent State has been one of our best partners in terms of developing downtown over the last 5-7 years and encouraging folks to go into business.”