College Hill Community Urban Redevelopment Corp.

OurShop College Hill was created to provide small businesses with free rent, marketing support, storefront activation and programing funding, whiteboxed space, tenant improvement, and sales data analysis. The goal of OurShop is to help create a business district that can be a success story for any type of business while learning what type of support is needed to help new businesses survive in a neighborhood business district. OurShop is one tool within the community to enhance walkability, diversity, reduce vacancy, while giving each business owner the power to create their own storefront.  OurShop has an immediate racial equity impact and addresses the needs of women and BIPOC owned businesses, especially as they were significantly impacted from COVID-19. 

OurShop is a program piloted in College Hill, Cincinnati, Ohio and has been developed by College Hill CURC, YARD & Co, Kolar Experiences Institute, and The Haile Foundation. It is a small business pilot designed to help cities and their neighborhoods make smart, data-driven decisions about main street retail in a post-COVID and tech-enriched world. The initiative is meant to bridge community aspirations with the goals of entrepreneurs while measuring the impact of placemaking and activation on retail sales and growth. The initiative is meant to inform public and private investments in entrepreneurship ecosystems, neighborhood retail strategies, and commercial district operating systems.

The concept for OurShop College Hill was developed after many years of small businesses reaching out to College Hill CURC looking for commercial space to rent, but at the time could not afford market rate rent or the risk of a traditional multi-year commercial lease. Additionally, many of these businesses coming to College Hill CURC did not have a business plan or know how to navigate opening a storefront. 

Our organization realized there is a lack of opportunity for small businesses without capital to transition from online, pop-up, and outdoor market sales to a full storefront. We know that at least 20% percent of start up businesses fail in their first year, and that increases in years 2-5.  Much is failure is attributed to the risk and barriers associated with starting a brick and mortar business: multi-year leases, upfront capital needs, operational costs, lack of demand for products, and over/under saturated markets, etc. OurShop has the ability to break down those barriers and pipeline entrepreneurs into a local retail district without all of the risk, fear, and uncertainty associated with the traditional start up process.  

Additionally, there is major uncertainty across the nation of how business districts will function in the wake of the COVID19 Pandemic. OurShop collects real time market data and sales information to assist entrepreneurs in maximizing their profit while navigating the realities of post-pandemic consumer patterns.  

OurShop is a place-based initiative aiding with reinvestment in local communities, supporting small businesses working to gain capital, customers, and sales while bringing vacant buildings back to life. BIPOC and women-owned businesses are underrepresented and historically excluded and were hit the worst from the COVID-19 pandemic. The concept removes the barrier of fear and risk for BIPOC and women-owned businesses after they were the hardest hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. It also removes the entry barriers to having a brick and mortar such as business plan, required revenue, ability to pay market rate rents, etc. While initially OurShop did not target a certain demographic, there was an expectation that BIPOC and women-owned businesses would be the majority of applicants knowing how their businesses had been hurt in the past year. After analyzing the 54 applicants that applied within 2 weeks, we saw the majority of businesses were women and minority owned. 81% of applicants for OurShop College Hill were Women and 91% were BIPOC.

Our solution is directly working to improve the lives of small business owners. These may be people who have to hold another position outside of their business, started their business from their home and were selling products online and at markets, but are now running out of space and need a storefront. Of the businesses selected for the first round of OurShop, running from November 27th to May 28th, all 5 were women owned, 3 are Black owned, and 1 is AAPI owned. Within the application and interview process, BIPOC and Women-owned businesses were given preference knowing they are underrepresented and are historically excluded from business, and were especially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the 54 applicants, 49 or 91% were BIPOC owned, 47 or 87% were Black owned, and 44 or 81% were Female owned. Additionally, 34.5% had a yearly household income of $29,000 or less, 62.1% of businesses that applied had been operating for 2 years or less, and 56.8% had an annual business revenue of $10,000 or less. 

Ohio

OurShop’s mission is to bridge the gap for very small businesses between building their business from their home to signing a multi year lease while also providing marketing, sales analysis, and other mentorship opportunities. 

As a pilot within the College Hill neighborhood, OurShop is uniquely aligned with College Hill CURC’s work and mission to revitalize the Hamilon Ave business district. Within our mission, we focus on supporting existing small businesses through development projects and other work to improve the business district. OurShop is just one of our projects that supports existing local small businesses. College Hill CURC’s mission is to work closely with residents, neighborhood associations, businesses owners, and strategic partners to revitalize the Hamilton Avenue Business District focusing our work in Affordable Housing, Economic Development, Small Business Support, and Community Engagement. 

OurShop provides business owners with these opportunities that will help grow their business: 

• Rent-free Storefront

• Marketing Support

• Monthly Activation and Programming Budget

• Storefront Buildout Budget

• Whiteboxed Space

• Sales Data Analysis

• Participation in Community / Neighborhood Events

By providing a physical space for tenants as well as growth support listed above, they are able to bypass the traditional constraints and barriers that exist for small business owners as they launch into brick and mortar. Providing marketing support and participating in community events help to get the OurShop name and business name out there will bring more people to shop. Providing storefront activation funding for events can help boost sales and increase one’s presence within the community. All of this support allows the business to gain capital, awareness, and support within a community and eventually leads them to be able to afford rent, make greater profit, and specifically support BIPOC and women-owned businesses. 

Short - term outcomes: OurShop is introduced to a local business district as an opportunity to diversify business type and support BIPOC and women owned businesses and entrepreneurs.  The selected businesses will be able to grow to become sustainable within the neighborhood. 

Long - term outcomes: OurShop is sustained within neighborhood business districts to provide a space for entrepreneurs to launch with wraparound support services.This strengthens the local economy and improves/diversifies the local business ecosystem. OurShop continues to scale into new neighborhoods and business districts.  

We are currently serving 5 businesses in our first round of OurShop, however within one year we expect OurShop to serve 15 businesses and spread to 3 other communities. We are working with the City of Cincinnati to scale this pilot to other neighborhoods in our region. Within 5 years, we look to OurShop to serve 40 businesses in 16 different communities in the greater Cincinnati region, growing 3 communities per year.

OurShop currently serves College Hill, a historic and diverse neighborhood located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the fifth largest neighborhood in the City of Cincinnati and has roughly 14,000 residents. 61% of the population is African American, 38% is White. 59% of our population qualifies as Low-to-Moderate Income per the Census data. This is the current community where OurShop is located, however we are currently working with the City of Cincinnati and our partners to scale OurShop to 3 new communities next year. 

Current OurShop College Hill partners include College Hill CURC, YARD & Co., an urban growth firm using place to solve problems through design, Kolar Experiences Institute, a research & insights institute exploring the intersection of people, process, and place to find solutions for communities, and The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation pursuing charitable goals through both traditional and fresh approaches while focusing on community development.

Much of today’s existing small business support is limited to start-up accelerators, mentorship, and technical assistance. Once a business opens its doors in a brick-and-mortar storefront, how can the community continue to support it?  During the COVID-19 Pandemic, small businesses experienced the most challenging years of their tenure. The College Hill CURC reacted with a comprehensive response to retain existing businesses along the avenue while also attracting new businesses to the district in the throes of the pandemic.  College Hill CURC and their partners implemented this program designed to confront and overcome many of the challenges that small businesses face. OurShop serves as a road map for future place-based strategies in supporting the retention and attraction of small businesses to your business district. 

We work closely with and in our community which aids us in developing place based solutions, like OurShop. We are very knowledgeable in the local environment and current local economy. We have strong relationships with the other business owners in the district as well as our residents through our community engagement efforts and all of the other ways we support small businesses within our community. College Hill CURC has strong ties within this neighborhood and we act with proximate leadership and are able to guide decisions made by us and our partners, YARD & Co, The Haile Foundation, and Kolar Experiences Institute. Representatives from our community from residents to business owners were involved during the application and selection process and took part in the interviews for the OurShop tenants.

Our marketing team works to communicate clearly with our neighborhood through a variety of outreach methods. We are active on social media sharing information about our projects such as OurShop and events happening throughout the community as well as development work people see happening in our business district. Our organization hosts many free community events that support and engage local businesses. Most recently, we completed a community survey to get feedback on our work and understand what kinds of businesses our community wants to see. We also hosted community conversations that help to inform our neighborhood residents about our work and create closer connections. We work closely with our local Business Association and Community Council to share our work and gather input. By using all these forms of communication and showing, rather than just telling our community members about the work we do, we are able to build trust.

1. Next Year: Our pilot was originally developed for 6 months, after which we would determine based on data and results from the project, input from the business owners, and overall understanding of the operations how to proceed with a second round. We are retaining 3 of the 5 original businesses from our pilot, and the other 2 will have storefronts in other neighborhoods.  Moving forward our goal is to search for new businesses to participate in our program to select more for round 2, hopefully July through December of 2022. We want to sustain OurShop in College Hill after the first round because of the success, however we are also working closely with the City of Cincinnati to scale OurShop into 3 new communities. The College Hill pilot is an important growth phase for OurShop as we test the scalability of this concept. 

2. Next 5 Years: Our goal is to create a sustainable incubator in College Hill, well known within the City of Cincinnati, for small businesses with a variety of support provided to them. Throughout the next five years, every year we would like to expand OurShop to 3 more communities. These communities will be tasked with moving the program forward in their neighborhood. We believe this model has the ability to be replicated throughout our region and nation in business districts working to make room for BIPOC and women owned companies.

We are the right mix of nonprofit, foundation, urban design companies, and data institutes to create an effective partnership.  From a practitioner standpoint the College Hill CURC has experience with property management, operations, planning, and marketing which set us up well to run, grow, and advise on future OurShops.  Yard and Company is well positioned to connect to other communities and market OurShop and Kolar Experience Institute is well positioned to perform business data analysis and respond to research questions.

A partnership with the Truist Foundation and MIT Solve would help us to continue the success of OurShop and help build it to be a sustainable program within the City of Cincinnati for small retail business while targeting women and BIPOC owners. It will also help us spread awareness of the program so that communities can replicate it across the nation. 

Our partnership was set up so that each entity has a unique role that plays off of their strengths.  CHCURC has many years of experience in small business support, development, and operations and will continue to play this role as the primary manager in College Hill and as advisory to other communities and neighborhoods who adopt this model.  YARD is an experienced urban growth firm using place to solve problems through design and will connect with other communities and the City of Cincinnati to expand the program. Kolar Experiences Institute with their experience in research & insights they will aid in exploring the intersection of people, process, and place within the OurShop program and continue to help develop this solution for other communities.

We are open to partnering with any organization that would like to implement/adopt the OurShop model, any organization that can help us spread the word about this exciting possibility nation-wide, or provide resources that can compliment our efforts to support BIPOC and women opened businesses.