Owners of niche shops downtown getting priced out

Being a part of the redevelopment in Silver Spring has its cost, many now say

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Elena Aiken (left), owner of Elena Design Studio on Fenwick Lane in downtown Silver Spring, helps customer Doris McGhee of Washington, D.C., decide on a necklace June 10, during an open house at her shop. ‘‘I like revitalization but I’m not benefiting from it,” said Aiken, who fears her rent will soon increase. Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Sandra Pope, an artist at Colour Art Design Studio on Fenwick Lane in downtown Silver Spring, sets aside one of her vases for a customer for a June 10 open house. Monthly rent for Pope’s store has gone up $300.

Her sister, Sandra Pope, won’t have her store, Colour Art Studio & Gallery, much longer. Her rent is going up $300 a month and she knows she can’t pay it.

If Aiken’s rent for her nearby Fenwick Lane studio were to go up that much — and it might — she wouldn’t be able to pay it, either.

Aiken and Pope aren’t alone. Several other small businesses also have left or are planning to leave the downtown because of rising rents. For instance, ACI-Home Theater Solutions, which has been in the downtown since 1969, is leaving its Bonifant Street location and moving to Tech Road to make way for a new Silver Spring Library. Employees there said they had considered staying downtown, but rents are increasing from $10 and $20 a square foot to $30 a square foot and up.

Owners say it’s unfortunate smaller niche businesses are being priced out, because although they like what redevelopment has done for the downtown, those businesses are the ones that make Silver Spring unique.

‘‘Silver Spring has really changed so much and it is absolutely beautiful,” Aiken said. ‘‘I really want to stay here. [Small businesses] have been a staple and have invested in the neighborhood. ... I like revitalization but I’m not benefiting from it.”

Residents are also concerned. Several members of Montgomery Preservation Inc. and the Silver Spring Historical Society have lobbied for a ‘‘heritage tourism” plan as a way to showcase and promote Silver Spring’s small businesses outside the downtown’s redeveloped core. That designation, they said, would allow businesses to market together and create a walking tour brochure.

However, the county’s redevelopment goal for Silver Spring ‘‘was to create a vital and dynamic business center from something that at that time had lost more than 300 businesses and left 40 to 50 vacant buildings,” said Joe Shapiro, a spokesman for the county’s Department of Economic Development.

And it did, and as a result of the area’s revitalization, rents—driven by the market—have increased as more businesses come to the downtown, he said. That was to be expected. However, Shapiro added, after a point, rents will stabilize.

And the county, which has worked with businesses that survived Silver Spring’s economic downturn, has made provisions for small businesses. One of the efforts is a small business initiative where owners can learn about marketing strategies, receive some financial assistance and network. Additionally, Shapiro said, downtown Silver Spring has an incubator that has served as a start-up space for several small businesses.

‘‘Obviously, it would be great if every small company in Silver Spring could stay in Silver Spring. But the fact of the market is that rents sometimes rise,” Shapiro said, adding the county is assisting some businesses that have had to relocate. County officials also want to keep small businesses in the downtown to maintain its character and avoid having the same kind of look throughout Montgomery County’s urban areas.

Additionally, Shapiro said, some business owners can take advantage of the downtown’s arts and entertainment district designation, which allows artists who own or rent property in the downtown to apply for tax breaks. The designation also allows buildings constructed for arts purposes or businesses that charge admission for arts purposes to be eligible for tax breaks.

The county has tried to educate business owners about what’s available for them, Shapiro said. However, he added, the arts and entertainment designation is ‘‘an example of a great program that is probably not as well-understood as we’d like it to be.”

For instance, some business owners, like Aiken, don’t know what’s available for artists who want to do business in the downtown. She was told some condos were being built with retail space for artists, but she doesn’t know where they are or if she has any other options. And when she does see space for rent, it’s often out of her price range — when she first began renting in the downtown 10 years ago, she paid $650 a month.

Space has filled quickly in the new town center. Bryant Foulger, a principal at developer Foulger-Pratt, in a previous interview said space there is about 96 percent occupied.

Aiken said she knows some retail space may be available at the new library. ‘‘But it’s probably going to go to big businesses like the rest of the spaces,” she said. ‘‘Artists just don’t bring in lots of money — that’s too bad.”

It’s not just artists who are dealing with rising rents. In 2008, when its lease is up, Roadhouse Oldies may also have to leave, said owner Alan Lee. The building the store occupies on Thayer Avenue has been sold to a real estate developer and a residential structure is going to be built there.

From what he’s heard, Lee said, the new building is slated to have some commercial space. However, he doesn’t think he will be able to afford the rent. Roadhouse Oldies has been in the downtown since 1974. ‘‘We’ll probably be leaving this exact location when the lease is up.”

Business hasn’t been bad. In fact, Roadhouse Oldies, which specializes in oldies music, specifically 1950s and 1960s rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop and Motown, and 1970s and 1980s soul, has seen the downtown through its economic downturns and actually did quite well in the 1980s when other businesses suffered. But the store doesn’t do the type of business that could handle a significant rent increase, Lee said. The store will retain its Baltimore location.

But Lee would like to stay in Silver Spring. America was founded with small businesses, he said, and it’s important that those businesses are able to remain in the area, because they are what make downtown Silver Spring unique and contribute to its local flavor.

‘‘As much as I love Starbucks, does anyone get excited about them?” he said. ‘‘When you’re walking down the street, do you say, ‘Oh, a Starbucks — I haven’t seen one of those in five minutes’?”

‘‘There’s got to be a place for small mom and pop businesses like us if the rents don’t get out of hand,” he said. If small businesses continue to be priced out of the area, ‘‘you won’t know whether you’re in Silver Spring or White Flint Mall.”