Sven Risom and his wife, Laura, became enamored with the beauty of Block Island long ago. After summering there for many years, they became full-time residents in 2009. That’s when they began putting into action a plan to prove “a year-round business can work” on the island, said Sven.
Today, North Light Fibers, an 8-year-old micro yarn mill, employs six workers year-round. Its yarn is spun from alpacas and yaks at The 1661 Inn’s farm, a neighboring hotel, as well as from fibers from across the country.
Online sales, knitting retreats designed to extend the traditional summer tourism season, wholesale contracts and zoning changes to allow for light industry to support the business all helped North Light grow.
Yet, the Risoms’ success remains an anomaly. Limited winter transportation to and from the mainland, a dearth of affordable housing and other issues have long conspired to keep all but a few businesses on the island seasonal.
And while New Shoreham officials and some residents say they’d like to see more year-round businesses on the 9.7-square-mile land area of the island, there’s no formal plan to address the longstanding challenges.
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Sven Risom, North Light Fibers owner, would like to see the state support a business incubator on Block Island. / PBN PHOTO/K. CURTIS[/caption]
Risom, North Light’s vice president, isn’t giving up the fight but says it might be time for the state to step in, perhaps by supporting an island business incubator.
Other residents, such as Teri Radtke, a retired school teacher, think some of the impediments to year-round business growth are more intractable.
“There is never going to be a robust winter economy here until the [slow] internet is resolved,” she said.
TOURIST HAVEN
Lured by beaches, wildlife, a 19th-century lighthouse and island vistas, tens of thousands of tourists flock to New Shoreham, Block Island’s official designation, each summer.
When they disembark the ferry at Old Harbor, 100 yards from the main shopping district, they’re greeted by friendly faces offering car, moped or bicycle rentals, Del’s Lemonade stands and a hodgepodge of resort-wear shops and restaurants housed in Victorian-era buildings. It’s the picture of a bustling island economy.
There are approximately 110 businesses open seasonally – late April to early October – with the majority of sales taking place in the high season, Fourth of July to Labor Day.
Jessica K. Willi moved to the island year-round 15 years ago after summering there as a child. Now, as executive director of the Block Island Tourism Council, she markets the island to tourists in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York.
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Jessica K. Willi, executive director of the Block Island Tourism Council, speaks with John Cullen, owner of B.I. Tees. Willi says last summer’s tourist season was the busiest on record. / PBN PHOTO/K. Curtis[/caption]
The last summer season, she said, “was the busiest on record.”
Over the past decade, she’s seen fluctuation in retail and food spending, but business at the island’s 35 hotels, she said, has held steady because “there’s such a strong commitment” by families that have been traveling there for generations.
Revenue from the state’s hotel tax is a major source of income for the island, generating $2.97 million between fiscal years 2007 and 2017, according to the R.I. Department of Revenue. That’s an average of $270,277 per year. Fiscal 2017’s total of $359,029 is the highest in the past decade.
The council’s tourism efforts, she said, are “97 percent reliant on the hotel tax.”
Willi estimates more than 90 percent of current island businesses are seasonal, tourism-related companies.
Extending tourism, and related business opportunity, beyond the summer months, is something Willi, like Risom and others, is committed to.
She hopes self-guided programming will be one solution for her one-woman office. Drawing attention to the island’s history, Willi implemented a bicycle tour in which participants scan cellphone QR codes to learn about significant landmarks and an annual treasure hunt for 500 glass orbs, crafted by South Kingstown-based artist Eben Horton, scattered across the island.
Bringing tourists to the island is her job, but Willi said measuring success is difficult, because there’s no way to count the number of people on the island. Most visitors are dependent on Providence-based Interstate Navigation Co., also known as the Block Island Ferry, and catch high- (30-minute) and traditional-speed (one-hour) ferries from Point Judith, Newport and Fall River. The private company does not share ridership data.
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HIGH SEASON: Visitors disembark from the primary mode of transportation to and from the island, the Block Island Ferry. / PBN PHOTO/K. CURTIS[/caption]
One factor limiting business growth outside of summer months is that ferry access to the island during the shoulder season and winter is nearly halved. According to the 2017 traditional-speed ferry schedule, from Jan. 2 through May 29, and Sept. 4 (Labor Day) to Dec. 31, 42 weeks of the year, there are 195 traditional-speed trips to Block Island from Point Judith and the same number of return trips – an average 4.6 trips per week.
During the 10-week high season there are 81 traditional-speed trips from Point Judith and 85 return trips – an average 8.1 (outbound) and 8.5 (inbound) trips per week. On July 4, Aug. 14 (Victory Day) and Labor Day there are 18 outbound and inbound trips, combined, to Block Island.
And the 30-minute, high-speed rides from Point Judith to Block Island are only offered from May 25 to Oct. 9 this year.
Year-round, residential spending sustains a gas station, grocery store and a handful of other small businesses. Even the movie theater closes when the leaves change color.
SBA HELP
Mark S. Hayward, Rhode Island district director for the U.S. Small Business Administration, recently completed his 23rd annual trip to Block Island. In tow was a 25-person contingent of bank representatives, state officials and personnel to help island business owners.
Hayward makes the trip, this year on June 22, so the business community doesn’t feel overlooked.
He said the amount of support provided by the SBA to Block Island, something Hayward measures via outreach, questions, visits, and tourism council and chamber of commerce meetings, has held steady since 2007, prior to the start of the Great Recession. But the type of requests has changed.
Bank loans are available, said Hayward, but their size and frequency “depend on the economy.” He estimated that over the past decade there were 20 loans to Block Island businesses ranging in size from millions of dollars to smaller, working-capital loans.
‘Nobody is making money hand over fist, everybody is trying to survive.’
JESSICA K. WILLI, Block Island Tourism Council executive director
“In 2007, more people were looking for access to capital, whereas today … people are asking for technical assistance,” said Hayward. He also facilitates meetings for island businesses with organizations such as the Women’s Resource Center in Warren and University of Rhode Island’s Small Business Development Center.
Hayward said in the past decade Block Island businesses have “tried vehemently” to extend the shoulder tourism season. Citing the annual Run Around the Block (41st running on Sept. 9), Taste of Block Island (Sept. 15-17) and a post-Thanksgiving stroll, he said they’ve had “some degree of success.”
MADE ON BLOCK ISLAND
Two factors each year make or break Block Island seasonal businesses: weather and the economy. During a sunny summer, when the regional economy is on an upswing, Block Island is thriving, and businesses do everything they can to get tourists to spend – some more successfully than others.
Paige Gaffett, coordinator of seasonal artist cooperative Spring Street Gallery, agrees with most business owners that discretionary spending on the island has rebounded since the Great Recession.
People are buying less art, she said, but purchases are in “higher price points.”
What allows Block Island’s art scene to thrive, she said, is the same marketing promoted by North Light Fibers: “Made on Block Island.”
Yet Gaffett said business is not robust enough to stay open year-round. Calling cooler months a “crap shoot,” she said: “In the shoulder season we don’t even bother starting gallery shows because the weather is too iffy.”
The weather’s impact has led a lot of Block Island business owners, including Risom, to increase their online presence, hoping off-island sales will boost year-round numbers.
In a 2010 Providence Business News interview, Kathleen Szabo, executive director of the Block Island Chamber of Commerce, estimated less than half of companies on the island maintained an online presence.
Today, she estimated, 65-70 percent of all businesses maintain an online presence, but some “holdouts” still refuse to adapt.
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ISLAND ANOMALY: Karyn Logan works with yarn spun from alpacas and yaks at North Light Fibers, a micro yarn mill in New Shoreham and one of the few year-round businesses on Block Island. An anomaly on the island, the business has been in operation for eight years and continues to grow with the help of online sales. / PBN PHOTO/K. CURTIS[/caption]
Risom called the island’s lack of high-speed internet “an impediment to the year-round model.”
Because of the size of their operation and location on a remote New England island, North Light Fibers, he said, must “fight way beyond our weight class” to compete with producers in China and Peru – and it relies on online sales to do so.
But because the island lacks broadband internet, streaming video and downloads larger than 10 MB are too much for the system to handle, Risom said, adding “intermittency is a big issue” with access speeds fluctuating hour to hour.
The situation is so bad, he said, online orders were lost when the internet was down across the island for three days in August.
‘There is never going to be a robust winter economy here until the [slow] internet is resolved.’
TERI RADTKE, retired school teacher
“The question is how to afford [bringing it to the island]” and, [whether] the community deems it necessary in an environment where people seek to leave behind modern technology and embrace nature and solitude, he said.
Szabo agrees slow speeds are a frustration. “If you come to the island and try to use our internet, you’d be tapping your foot waiting,” she said.
“Funding is the biggest issue,” she added, citing the project’s more than $7 million price tag.
Island Bound Bookstore, purchased by sisters Susan Bush and Laura Parsons in December, is another year-round business reliant on online sales.
The shop, an American Booksellers Association member, carries a curated selection of fiction and nonfiction titles often rated by The New York Times.
Managing a year-round business on Block Island, “the best you can hope is to tread water,” said Bush, who decreases store hours between January and March.
She’s hoping to collect the names of “book-lover” summer visitors and convert them to special ordering from her website the rest of the year.
Increasing offseason online sales “will give us some much-needed income,” she said.
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SUMMER DRAWS: Ballard’s hotel and beach club in Old Town is one of Block Island’s oldest and most popular businesses. / PBN PHOTO/K. Curtis[/caption]
Similarly, Steven C. Filippi, owner of seasonal businesses Hotel Manisses and Ballard’s, saw a positive return after investing 15-fold in a social-media marketing campaign. Filippi would not share the total cost of the effort.
In terms of bookings now, he added, “we’re taking more shots on goal than we were in 2008 and 2009.”
Filippi says one of the biggest challenges for many Block Island business owners is a limited labor force resulting from a lack of affordable housing. Especially at Ballard’s restaurant, he said, he pays “a lot” of overtime because “if you need 50 staff but you can only house 40, guess what, you only have 40 [summer] staff.”
Filippi, who has summered on the island for 11 years, said insufficient housing for workers has been an issue “as long as [he] can remember.”
Willi added housing is often prioritized, depending on workers’ jobs. Chefs are often housed first and owners “hope” to fill positions such as busboy with locals, she said.
Willi says smaller island businesses have learned to live with the limited labor pool by relying on family members to fill in the gaps.
“There has not been a good solution” for the housing problem, said Willi, nor does she expect one anytime soon.
BOOSTING BUSINESS?
Shirlyne Gobern, New Shoreham’s interim town manager, believes more year-round businesses could survive on Block Island. “It wouldn’t hurt” the island economy, she said, especially if run from home.
“If people are creative and [establish] home-based businesses, maybe it could work,” she added.
‘If people are creative and [establish] home-based businesses, maybe it could work.’
SHIRLYNE GOBERN, New Shoreham interim town manager
She acknowledges the island could use more affordable housing but couldn’t say how that might be achieved.
Gobern did say getting high-speed internet on the island “could promote people to work here year-round in the offseason.” She said a committee has been working on the issue, but still wonders how much of an impact high-speed internet can have.
“This is a stumbling block for me because, say we did have the best internet, it depends on whether someone would want to live here in the dead of winter when there’s not thousands of people around, but the few hundreds that live here year-round,” she said.
What could provide a spark for local businesses – in the form of lower electricity bills – is the recently completed five-turbine wind farm, the nation’s first.
Perennially high electricity rates have been a nuisance for businesses, said Willi, who explained it’s not uncommon for a 40-room hotel with a restaurant to pay $25,000 per month for an electricity bill, on top of payroll and operating costs. For comparison, she said, a typical Block Island house without an air conditioner pays between $150 and $200 per month.
Businesses and residents received their first updated bill in June, she said, adding it’s too early to measure the impact lowered rates will have on businesses’ bottom line.
“Nobody is making money hand over fist, everybody is trying to survive,” said Willi.
Looking forward, however, if rates stabilized the way energy executives said they would, Willi thinks businesses could budget better for increased summer costs, upgrade their infrastructure – even add air-conditioning units – and hotel rates may plateau.
Risom and other local business owners also would like to see more help from the state, including stepped-up promotion of the island by R.I. Commerce Corp.
Commerce RI officials, however, declined Providence Business News’ request for an interview.
In a statement, Commerce President Darin Early said he feels there is a “real opportunity” to elongate the shoulder season on Block Island, but declined to say how that could be achieved. He noted the call for more year-round businesses “coincides with our marketing” to increase visitation, but declined to identify Commerce’s efforts.
As for Risom’s idea of an on-island business incubator, Commerce officials declined to comment.
Despite the challenges, Risom says his year-round business, at least, isn’t going anywhere.
“I’m in it 120 percent,” he said.
While he hopes the number of year-round businesses on Block Island grows, Risom said, if others don’t take on the challenge, “that’s their decision, their loss.”
