Downtown: starting small, making it big

A big part of my job is working with businesses and business-hopefuls, many of them small, a significant number, start up. The people behind them run the gamut of professional mid-lifers sporting suit and tie to casual millennials in skinny jeans and tees. They are the colors of the rainbow with hair to match, all age groups and educational levels, from here and from elsewhere. They are engaged and passionate and have hopes and dreams about their business or plan, and they want to start their next chapter in a fabulous downtown space with high ceilings and exposed brick and lots of natural light with easy parking for $500 a month. I want that, too.

We sit at a table in our office in a rehabbed 100-year-old building with high ceilings and exposed brick and lots of natural light and talk about spaces that would be right for them and business capital needed and plans for the future. Some are not able to progress beyond the dream, but others are, and downtown and our region are the better for it.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 26) has become known as Small Business Saturday. It is the one day a year that cities around the country work together to try to turn attention to the benefits of small businesses: the jobs created, the money earned and shared, the uniqueness they bring to a community.

The Downtown Development Authority has worked with American Express, Small Business Saturday’s creator, for five years now as a “Neighborhood Champion.”

As a Champion, we work to promote small businesses, and encourage people to shop local and small before big or on-line. Our goal for this day and others is to support these businesses that give us character and make us special. I often remind people that our best memories rarely center on a big box store or a purchase from Amazon, but on that hole-in-the-wall restaurant with pie-to-die-for and a waitress who calls you “hon,” the 16-room hotel that lets you walk your dog and borrow the lobby bicycle, or the art marketplace store whose owner can speak with knowledge and interest about each artist and style of work represented there.

If we let these places go away because we are too busy to drive a few miles to shop there or are too eager to hit a “Buy it Now” button on-line, shame on us and it’s a shame for us. When these places close because of lack of support, we lose a bit of what sets us apart and makes us different, that gives us personality and helps us shine. These are the places that make coming home fun and visiting a treat, but they can’t make it without us.

I’m asking your help in making a Small Business Saturday resolution (and yes, it is binding).

Resolve to shop local first, and small, whenever able. Resolve to participate in events thrown by these businesses; the parties, the exhibits and showings, the special coffee and martini-tastings (I knew you’d like that one).

Not only are they fun, they will encourage the business to do even more, which will mean even more fun. Resolve to come downtown on Small Business Saturday and take part in whatever event the DDA has happening before the big Rockets over the Red fireworks display. For one day a year, these small businesses get top billing; the rest of the year, let’s give them our love.

I guarantee they will return it.

– Liz Swaine