Small Businesses And Retail Space
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-07-16/small-businesses-and-retail-space
Most urbanites say they'd like to see more local and independently owned shops and fewer chain stores in their neighborhood. But many local businesses find that leasing retail space in a good location is nearly impossible. Many developers and landlords prefer safe "credit tenants," which are typically national chains that can commit to long leases and afford to pay a premium. It's an economic reality that keeps mom-and-pop shops out of some of the city's most lucrative addresses. We'll hear from local business owners and landlords about the challenges on both sides.
Guests
Jim Abdo
President and CEO, Abdo Development
Joel Finkelstein
Owner, Roaster, Qualia Coffee (Washington, D.C.)
Chris Santillo
Owner, Potomac Kempo
Missy Frederick
Reporter, Washington Business Journal
Comments
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Kojo:
As you know, I travel between Washington, DC and Portland, OR* and I can tell you this issue has to do with the political/community exchange, where the decision is made to keep small, "Mom-and-Pop", human scale businesses as the mainstay of Portland's business community. It's just in the ether there, whereas, DC is literally up for sale to the corporate big chain stores, which literally suck the oxygen from the room of small-to-mid-sized businesses. It's getting to be that you can land in any US city and get to the same chain with the same layout.
*(run strategy for Lew Frederick, only brother in the OR House of Representative)
Kathleen Rand Reed
Corporate Anthropologist
Kojo,
As an ex owner of a small business/franchise owner this is an emotional are important discussion for me.
In 2003 I built, owned and operated a franchise restaurant in Greenbelt. It was probably one of the bigger openings in the area for some time, Atlanta Bread Company, corner of Cheerwood and Greenbelt Road next to Chipolte. The artilcle can still be googled from the Greenbelt news coverage.
The restaurant gave the area an upscale coffee, bakery and sandwich shop that added a great deal to the community. Franchising is an extremely tough, uphil battle. (Discussion of an entire different and new show for you) My restaurant added a great deal to the community and even the college. They used my story for business school case studies.
However, the rents are outrageous, I belive Greenbelt was in the neighborhood of $10,000 a month, add franchise fees, Greenbelt taxes, Maryland Taxes and PG county and it all adds up quickly.
In order to expand I bought the Atlanta Bread in Severna Park and started to build the latest concept of Atlanta Bread in Columbia. The Columbia project ended up costing much more than originally forecasted, rent was in the neighborhood of $13,000 per month. Long story short, capital dried up and I had to stop construction on the Columbia store prior to opening. I ended up having to walk away from all three locations due to the franchis laws in Maryland and the corporate office of Atlanta Bread got all three locations with little investment. The entire ordeal cost me out of pocket $800,000.
Atlanta Bread in Greenbelt and Serverna Park continue to flourish today I believe with little to know cost of construction as I took that.
My congratulations to your guests that made it in franchising as mentioned by some of your callers franchisees, in most cases are nothing more than small Mom and Pop start ups with a national label.
If you have a show on franchising I want to be a guest.
Good luck to all, Arnold Belasco, Columbia Maryland
Silver Spring is very good at supporting locally owned business - including restaurants. However, the problem is diversity. There are too many Ethiopian restaurants in the downtown area. I like Ethiopian food but not all the time. How can you encourage diversity?