May’s closing of Bagel-Fragel Deli, and the gradual disappearance of other locally owned stores in East Lansing, brings about a sense of loss to many students and longtime community members. These shops that have made East Lansing’s downtown area what it is are often hard to replace.
For many, businesses such as Gramma Bea’s or Scavenger Hunt are a novelty. But others find them to be a kind of signature for the city, places you can’t find anywhere else.
It’s the independently owned store that alumni come back to visit during football games and homecomings, places they remember during their time as students. You can’t always head over to the Blue Note Coffee Café for a cup of joe in any other town, but you can always find a Starbucks.
This is not to say national chains are abominations plaguing our city like open sores. You can’t keep the chains out, and a good city planner will bring in a few, for the guaranteed tax revenue and to draw people downtown who would otherwise never come.
But in East Lansing, groups such as the Downtown Community Action League feel their favorite local businesses are being pushed out. Students, community members and city officials need to become more active in promoting these small businesses and take extra care to make them feel welcome as part of our downtown.
At the same time, small business owners need to be sharper and more business savvy to compete with the big chains. They do have a few edges over the chains, and need to use those - with the help of city leaders - to promote themselves. Smaller stores often promote local entertainment and special deals which bigger stores can’t or won’t offer.
It’s the smaller stores along with the polished larger chains that create the unique downtown atmosphere necessary for success.
The fate of Tower Records is a good example of this. At the time of its closing, there was a very palpable separation between the local stores and the national chains. It became something more than the textbook simple supply-and-demand, better advertising versus word-of-mouth business situation.
Shoppers just weren’t coming downtown often enough to support Tower, and now an empty storefront mars Grand River Avenue. The independent record stores, for now, have survived. But if East Lansing doesn’t become a shopping destination that draws people away from suburban shopping centers, how many other empty storefronts will there be?
A healthy downtown needs a lot of allure to draw public interest and create a good atmosphere for any business to survive, regardless of its size or status.
