This is the third article in a series about how landlords and their present and potential commercial tenants can work together to create vibrant, livable neighborhoods. To learn about how tenants are identifying problems, please see our first story. Ever wanted to know the perspective of your landlord? Please see our second story.
The landlords and small business owners invested in the workings of successful and thriving business districts know two things: If their districts don't remain competitive, they not only run the risk of failing to attract new businesses to their neighborhoods, but they also run the risk of losing some of their most popular businesses to other up-and-coming districts on the ascent.
You don't have to conjure up the past to remember that that the now-vibrant commercial strips of North Mississippi Avenue and NE Alberta Street didn't always look and feel the way they do now.
Bringing a neighborhood business district back to its former glory is a difficult path that takes time, with no guarantee as to how long that glory will last when it's finally restored.
Gradually, landlords who own property in once-flourishing neighborhoods have realized that they now collectively play an important role in a commercial core's success, and, with the help of city bureaus and neighborhood and business associations, they're making a difference. Here's how some of them are doing it.
Becoming The Solution
Angie Even doesn't live in the Woodstock neighborhood anymore—she's lived in Happy Valley since 2002—but that doesn't mean she's no longer invested in it.
Even was a presence in Woodstock for years. She owned her own business, The Flower Shop—she sold it in 2008—and still owns a commercial building there. And for 17 years, she served on the Woodstock Community Business Association (WCBA) as both treasurer and president.
Still, even after moving away, she says it felt "unnatural" for her to be uninvolved. When the Portland Development Commission (PDC) announced its Main Street program, Even looked into it with the hope that Woodstock might be considered as a candidate, and thus receive the funding and attention needed for revitalization.
What she learned was that her old neighborhood was not only too poor to be considered for the program—neighborhood businesses and organizations must come up with tens of thousands of dollars annually to participate—it was, at the same time, too wealthy to be considered for any other substantial municipal grants.
"So I thought, ‘If we can't get any help from anyone, we'll just have to do it ourselves,’" Even says.
She contacted her friend, fellow landlord and longtime WCBA colleague Gene Dieringer and invited him to lunch. As they ate, she told him her plan to beautify the neighborhood. She said she'd kick in $500 if he did too—he did—and use the money for small projects. And just like that, the Stakeholders Group, which would soon be comprised of commercial landlords interested in polishing up the neighborhood, was born.
That was in 2008.
Now in its fourth year, the group has active members on every block of Woodstock's commercial corridor (annual memberships are $250), and a participation rate of 25 percent.
It’s raised more than $7,000 in fees—plus another $2,000 in grant money from Venture Portland—all of which has been tangibly reinvested back into the business district.
The Stakeholders have purchased flowers to plant along the street, and hired contractors to rehang and replace neighborhood banners as well as trim trees that were badly in need of maintenance. And sometimes, members just hit the streets to pull weeds in the median and clean up litter.
It's working in other ways too. Even says that those reluctant to join the group have started improving their own properties, so Woodstock's shininess is spreading.
So far, she says, her lunchtime idea has grown into a DIY success story.
"It helps the neighborhood, it helps the businesses in the neighborhood, and it helps our investments," Even says.
Invite And Unite
Murray Koodish manages a wine shop in Irvington in the heart of his neighborhood's commercial district on NE Broadway Street. As president of the Northeast Broadway Business Association (NEBBA), he has his finger on the neighborhood's pulse and knows how he and his fellow small business owners should plan their futures.
In preparation for the Portland Comprehensive Plan's upcoming update, Koodish has engaged in dialogues with business owners from the neighborhoods that border and surround Irvington, "[developing] relationships that had never been made before," he says.
This conversation has yielded a consensus on the current and future challenges many business owners will have to confront, like a lack of crosswalks, street signals and, potentially, parking.
So earlier this spring, Koodish reached out to the landlords who own commercial spaces in the district and invited them to a luncheon, where he and his colleagues updated them on the collective health and future of NEBBA businesses.
About 15 landlords showed up, says Koodish, and many seemed "thrilled" that such a meeting was even initiated, because when you discuss a district's economic future, you're also discussing the value of the properties. The meeting also updated landlords who were unaware of recent neighborhood trends, such as commercial leasing fluctuations along Broadway.
"People with empty spaces were surprised to know that leasing rates had dropped," Koodish says. In turn, he says, those landlords started lowering their rates by as much as $500 a month to reflect the current market and to make the empty spaces more attractive to potential tenants.
Plus, NEBBA even got some new members out of it when several landlords in attendance realized that they too were considered businesses in the district, and therefore joined, keeping them in the loop for the future.
When It Really Does Take A Village
Sometimes, it takes all kinds to make a difference, and you could argue that Lents is the perfect illustration of what happens when residents, landlords, businesses, and city officials get together to get things going.
For a long time, the space that is the Lents Town Center largely consisted of either undeveloped land or long-vacant, old buildings. And because Lents has never even had a formal business district association, there was no one to lobby potential indie business owners.
But all of that is changing. Lents Neighborhood Association (LNA) land use chair Cora Potter says that, with the help of PDC and neighborhood boosters, Lents now has a web presence designed to promote new development, and to recruit and support new and existing businesses.
"Our vision is essentially to bring the Lents Town Center back to being the thriving urban village it was decades ago," Potter says.
And now they have some momentum. The town center is presently home to a new real estate office and a new diner. And since April, Working Class Acupuncture (WCA), another new business in Lents, has made a big splash with residents.
The building WCA currently occupies has been often-vacant for decades and used primarily for storage by the Farahs, the longtime Portland family who owns the property.
In fact, Sam Farah says his father grew up on the building's second story—his grandparents ran a general store on the first floor—back when Lents had an active retail area.
But with a little financial help from PDC, as well as some encouragement from residents and business owners, the Farahs emptied the building of their things, invested heavily in it, and sought a commercial tenant.
Farah says he's pleased by WCA's success and is happy to be a part of an effort to bring the area back to life. It feels safer now, he says, and, as might be expected, sprucing up his family's place is "rubbing off" on other businesses in the neighborhood too.
"People are taking ownership of their property and making [Lents] a nicer area to walk around," he says.
"If people don't see you care, why should they care?" he asks. "It only takes one person to get the ball rolling."
Potter says she's pleased too. In 2010, with the help of PDC, she was able to convince the Farahs to let LNA decorate their then-dark and vacant storefront windows of the old family store as part of the "Light Up Lents" project.
"We weren't able to do 'Light Up Lents' again [in 2011]," she says, "because we didn't have enough empty storefronts to work with!"
Ultimately Potter hopes that the work of the urban village encourages more developers to build spaces for business owners who want to make Lents their commercial home.
What challenges does your neighborhood face, and what tools are you using to address them? Of course we want to know, but so do our readers, who can adopt and adapt the strategies that work and avoid those that don't. Sound off below.
