A Long Life for Long Branch: Tools to Preserve Independent Retailers

Small businesses are the only retailers willing to serve many low-income and/or minority communities across the nation. In fact, 42% of all small businesses are located in low-income neighborhoods (US Census Bureau Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, 2016). However, these businesses are at risk in case of neighborhood change, due to their already thin profit margins, lack of access to capital, and limited access to information.

Montgomery County, MD, recognized that many of their brick and mortar entrepreneurs would face challenges, spurred by the Purple Line, an expansion of Washington DC’s Metro Rail. The county’s planning department enlisted &Access’s founder, Bobby Boone, to lead a class at the University of Maryland. The resulting project is an award-winning toolkit of potential solutions that the county can deploy. Although crafted for Long Branch, MD, these tools can be explored regardless of community typology.

Download Toolkit

PROCESS

CHALLENGES

Property Ownership

Many retailers do not own their property, and owners plan to redevelop.

Power

Small businesses are at a disadvantage for leverage with the county, banks, landlords, and developers.

Policy

There is a need for technical assistance, financing tools, and increased information distribution to level the playing field.

Place

Transformative placemaking and place-based investment can support neighborhood prosperity.

Displacement

The potential rise in rental rates and shift to an affluent resident threatens the small businesses and their customers’ ability to sustain in place.

TOOLS

Many tools can be leveraged to solve the challenges above. As such, the students prioritized which ones would be most impactful and created the following matrixes to quickly assess impact.

NEXT STEPS

The county realizes understanding the tools is only the first step and looks to expand the study to understand its applicability to other areas in the county, recently issuing an RFP to study other areas.

Additionally, &Access and the students are working to translate the toolkit to serve the nation. We look forward to sharing it with you all when it’s released, so please sign up for our quarterly newsletter to remain abreast of those updates.