09/22/2025
Bingo!
Here’s where economic development misses the mark. We fawn over small business owners and shower them with resources, while building owners get ignored. Which is insane. Building owners are entrepreneurs too, and without them you won’t have any good business owners.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve toured downtown with the Main Street director and they tell me they are recruiting a brewery, or an olive oil shop, or a café. I nod, it all sounds great. Then I ask the question that matters: “So where are they going?” Blank stares. A business can’t exist without walls and a ceiling. UPS needs an address. This part should be obvious, but it’s constantly overlooked.
If you have no available space, don’t expect new businesses. If all you have is bad space, don’t expect good businesses. Who rents the $200-a-month, leaky-ceiling dump? Startup churches, Beanie Baby ladies, DVD stores, karate shops. Quality entrepreneurs know their brand, their product, and their customer experience depend on a quality location. They’re willing to pay more to make more. Rundown downtowns attract rundown tenants.
And let’s kill another myth. Just because you have empty buildings doesn’t mean they’re available. Nine times out of ten, they’re not. Maybe they’re locked in a trust, maybe some family in Florida owns them, maybe they’re a tax write-off in some portfolio. If the owner isn’t trying to lease or sell, it’s not available. You’re not convincing them otherwise. The only solution is new ownership.
This is why small building owner development matters more than small business owner development. Everyone wants to help entrepreneurs write business plans, but almost no one is helping small developers. Yet developers are the key. They write good leases, they recruit tenants, they invest sweat equity, and they care about the district’s success because their own success depends on it.
Your downtown will never thrive if the real estate is in absentee hands. You can run all the entrepreneurship bootcamps you want, but if those businesses end up in a strip mall, you’ve failed. Revitalization starts and ends with local developers. Shift resources to train and finance them. Pass legislation that pressures deadbeat owners. Work with banks. Bring in the Incremental Development Alliance. Stop pretending you can fix your downtown with business programs while your buildings rot.
Your town was built by small developers, brick by brick. It will only be rebuilt the same way. Small business owners matter, but they depend on building owners. Ignore that, and your downtown stays stuck. Face it, without local building owners, Main Street is dead.
