While many businesses were struggling in 2007, the Maplewood Special Business District, led by Rachelle L’Ecuyer, director of community development for the City of Maplewood, decided to do something to jump start a Maplewood comeback, according to Feast Magazine.
“We started looking at what types of businesses are contributing to the community, what types of businesses are growing, what we can do to help them and what we can do to encourage them to come to Maplewood,” L’Ecuyer told Feast.
“So we developed some programs to recruit them.”
L’Ecuyer instituted a loan that covers a business’ first few months of rent – up to $4,250. Also, if a business stays in Maplewood for at least five years, the loan will be forgiven, according to Feast.
“It helps them stabilize, so they can take the money that they would be paying in rent and put it into marketing or something else,” L’Ecuyer told Feast.
“We thought, in the first few months – those are just so key. Once they get their heels dug in, then they can kind of establish themselves. But just getting them up and running, we saw, was a really big issue,” she said.
Among businesses that have taken advantage of the loan to come to Maplewood, are Kakao Chocolate, Pie Oh My, Strange Donuts, Traveling Tea and Great Harvest Bread Co.
Read the full article in Feast Magazine.
Big props to the Maplewood Special Business District for taking the bold steps necessary to bring new businesses to downtown Maplewood. This program has brought a slue of great small businesses (many are mentioned in the article) to the downtown area, and I can only hope this trend will continue now that Maplewood is well known in the STL dining / small business scene.