The downtown retail sector is gaining momentum. New stores are opening. Money is being spent on signage and preservation. For Parents Weekend at Brown University late last month, merchants ran a Downtown Student Spending Spree that stepped things up a notch.
When asked what is driving the momentum, key players say the answer is simple: collaboration.
Joelle Crane, program manager for the Providence Foundation, said the idea for the Spending Spree, which incorporated live music with discounts at several stores, restaurants and even performances at the Providence Black Repertory Company, was born out of a successful fall sidewalk sale a few weeks earlier.
The foundation joined forces with the Downtown Merchants Association and Cornish Associates about a year ago to brainstorm ideas for attracting different groups of people to the burgeoning retail district downtown.
Cornish Associates started some of the earlier retail marketing efforts, called Shop Downcity, shopdowncity.com, “because most of the early retailers were our tenants,” said Ari Heckman, project developer and retail tenant recruiter for the firm.
Heckman said he remembers when Tazza and Symposium Books first opened on Westminster Street. They were two pioneers that kicked off the retail revitalization.
A couple years ago the challenge was convincing retailers that they could be successful downtown. “Now the place speaks for itself,” Heckman said, noting that Farmstead, a cheese retailer at Wayland Square on the East Side, is opening a second store on Westminster Street next to Eno Fine Wines and Spirits, which opened in the spring.
There’s also a gym, spa and café tentatively moving into the Peerless Building. And the owners of Al Forno are opening a new restaurant, Tini’s, on Washington Street between Bravo Brasserie and Gracie’s sometime near the end of the year.
While the vacancy rate in downtown Providence was about 28 percent two years ago, now it’s about 14 percent, according to Providence Foundation statistics compiled earlier this year.
The challenge is finding retail space close to Westminster Street, Crane said, because people want to be near the activity there. People also want spaces that are smaller than the vacant spaces along Westminster.
“We have to come up with a new approach for that,” she said. “Now that some of the prime spaces are taken, how do we lease spaces on the side streets? We have to take a different approach.”
The good news is that new retail is opening along other streets in the city as well: Grandburo Design on Eddy Street, La Femme Boutique on Fountain Street and Sneaker Junkies on Weybosset Street.
“What’s happening is various pockets of downtown are becoming populated from a retail perspective,” said Arnell Milhouse, president of the Downtown Merchants Association. “As more of these dots come together, we’re gaining this critical mass where people can walk block to block … and have this retail experience.”
Lisa Milano, downcity program manager for the Providence Preservation Society Revolving Fund, is trying to make sure those dots come together by spreading the word about the Downcity Fund’s storefront improvement loans and grants, design assistance grants and construction loans available to downtown tenants and property owners.
The fund’s $5,000 storefront improvement matching grant program specifically is meant to assist owners and tenants with signage that could improve visibility for their restaurant or store, Milano said. The idea is to pull people through the city using signage, because a person is more apt to travel a side street if he or she can see there is something there.
The matching grants and loans, up to $25,000 per storefront, also could be used for doors, windows, exterior lighting, awnings, painting, masonry cleaning and accessibility improvements.
And though several places, including The Gallery at 17 Peck, Eno, the Dreyfus Hotel, Cuban Revolution, Local 121 and DownCity, have utilized the fund for signage, restoration, doors and windows, Milano said, there’s more money available.
“It’s hard sometimes to get the property owners to see the value in improving their buildings,” she said. “This program is meant to be an incentive … to make good design and historic preservation easier and affordable. It’s a process that can be in stages.”
The $7.2 million fund allows for free design assistance up to $1,200 for those interested in improving their storefronts, and it can be used by tenants or property owners.
Key players in downtown revitalization efforts also tout new additions such as Providence Art Windows, a revolving art exhibit that occupies empty storefronts downtown, for adding to the appeal of downtown. A map of the windows can be downloaded at www.providencedowntown.com.
Now in its third showing, Liz Keithline, director of the art windows project, said she hopes the exhibit becomes permanent.
“About 40 percent of the artists in the show are from elsewhere,” she said. “We’re getting the word out about Providence as an arts destination.”
Others are excited about the new wintertime farmers’ market that will be held every Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. inside AS220.
It’s the first time Farm Fresh Rhode Island has organized a permanent winter farmers’ market, because there hadn’t been a venue for one until now, said executive director Noah Fulmer.
Dozens of farms are expected to participate, bringing broccoli, squash, potatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, radishes, beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, beef, pork, eggs, shellfish, honey, maple syrup and even oranges from a small family-operated orange grove in Florida, he said.
“It’s about bringing the food downtown, making it easier for people to buy fresh produce year round,” Fulmer said. •
