Community Spotlight: Paving the Path from Pop-up to Permanent at the Batavia Boardwalk Shops
This article was originally published on the Illinois Main Street webpage, and has been republished here with permission.
Main Street programs in Illinois and across the country work to ensure that their commercial district is vibrant, buzzing with activity, and supporting the development and expansion of locally-owned businesses. This is no small task, but with entrepreneurship rates soaring during the pandemic, helping fledgling businesses go from an idea to a storefront is a particularly pertinent challenge. In our historic commercial corridors, the challenge is often identifying a space that can be nimble and allow for growth. Often, entrepreneurs are not yet in a position to commit to a commercial lease, and the large footprint left of downtown spaces is simply too much real estate for an emerging entrepreneur to utilize.
To help entrepreneurs scale their retail presence, Main Street programs look to innovative solutions for space and support. One such example is the Batavia Boardwalk Shops, a community-wide effort led by Batavia MainStreet. The Batavia Boardwalk Shops are freestanding, purpose-built structures acting as seasonal pop-up locations for entrepreneurs, offered in tandem with a business incubator program. After the first season of operation in Summer/Fall 2020, seven of the eight businesses have opened spaces in the Main Street district, an incredible success during a year of uncertainty.
After seeing the success of a pop-up program in Michigan, Alderman Marty Callahan engaged the city – both council and administrators – to implement the idea. When looking for the right partner for implementation, Batavia MainStreet was the obvious choice. This collaboration is nothing new to Batavia; MainStreet and the City are in constant conversation and meet regularly with other entities to share on projects and programs effecting the whole community. When collaboration is the standard, information and ideas flow more smoothly—whether on pandemic-related needs or projects to develop downtown entrepreneurship, like the Boardwalk Shops.
The shops themselves are a series 12x12 buildings, constructed by volunteers and Batavia High School Building Trades students. Their location was selected carefully to create nodes of activity between the Farmers’ Market, the shops, and the Main Street district. The MainStreet program facilitates promotion of the shops through sandwich boards, local media ads, social media influencers, and co-location of the businesses within other retail spaces downtown. The space activation, including planters and picnic tables, has also spurred conversation with the city about walkability and pedestrian safety.
And the entrepreneurs, themselves? If you build it, they will come—but you have to reach out to invite them, reduce barriers, and offer resources for success. Batavia MainStreet worked with media, local partners, and neighboring communities to spread the word, along with direct outreach to any makers and home-based businesses. Twenty-five entrepreneurs put forth applications; those that were accepted received training and support via a Small Business Incubator program also led by the MainStreet program. While these businesses have completed and moved into downtown spaces, support continues. Batavia MainStreet has aided with key needs: zoning issues, lease negotiation and signage requirements. The program also facilitates connections for the businesses with other support systems, including the Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Development Center.
After the first season of sales, success was celebrated via a graduation ceremony. Celebration – for the community, for the MainStreet program, and for the businesses – is an essential step: “Each of them navigated the baby steps that any business would in the first year of business, but they did it as a team, as a cohort, so a ceremony to celebrate that victory, FIRST YEAR IN BUSINESS, is huge! It was also a chance for us to share with the world that this was not just eight tiny vendors for a season. This was eight small businesses working hard to learn the ins and outs of business ownership and succeeding through an incubator program that was supported by our community,” noted Jamie Saam, Batavia MainStreet Board Chair. While celebration was socially distanced this year, the goal is to expand this to a community-wide recognition of the success of these entrepreneurs and onboard a new cohort for 2021.
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