With windows still boarded, downtown Raleigh businesses struggle to recover from COVID
Editor’s note: This story was corrected on Saturday, June 27, 2020.
Business in downtown Raleigh has been so meager in recent weeks that Ken Yowell, the owner of Oak City Meatball Shoppe, found himself sending a desperate plea to City Council this week.
After months of losing business due to COVID-19 and then widespread damage to storefronts during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, there is a somber mood hanging over downtown. With many businesses and offices still closed and boarded-up windows on several blocks, it’s no wonder foot traffic has fallen to the point where it sometimes feels like a ghost town, Yowell said.
“We are the closest to having to close as we ever have been,” he said in an interview, noting last week that his restaurant next to Red Hat Tower only brought in $3,300 in sales, a sum not large enough to make payroll.
He said he reached out to the city in hopes they could help businesses rehab their windows — something he thinks would go a long way to making downtown feel welcoming again.
Yowell has talked to several owners who haven’t been able to get their windows fixed for two main reasons: one, their insurance hasn’t come through yet, and two, their owners are still nervous tensions could escalate again at a protest.
“I think most businesses feel probably similar to me,” he said. “We support the protest, there is no doubt about it, but it’s difficult to sort of operate right now not knowing if those handful of people that are not peaceful protesters show back up.”
On May 30, thousands of demonstrators gathered in downtown Raleigh as part of nationwide protests against police brutality, days after Floyd, a Black man, was killed while in police custody by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
The first few hours of the protests were peaceful as more than 1,000 people marched from the Wake County Courthouse through downtown. But when a group of protesters entered a garage at the back of the Wake County Public Safety Center, the Raleigh Police responded with tear gas, smoke bombs, and pepper spray. The protest fragmented and some groups began smashing storefronts along Fayetteville Street and on the surrounding streets. At least 45 people were arrested Saturday through Monday for vandalism, arson, robbery and other charges, according to Raleigh police.
The Downtown Raleigh Alliance, an economic development non-profit, tallied numbers: according to CEO Bill King, more than 178 separate businesses or entities downtown sustained damage to their property or façade on the storefront level. The monetary value of the damage was not known by RPD or the DRA.
DRA also tracked 60 additional storefront businesses or properties that added boards as a precaution but did not suffer damage. King cautions that these numbers are estimates, since some businesses did not respond to outreach from DRA.
According to a 2019 DRA report, there are 117 retailers, 158 restaurants and 7.4 million square feet of private office space in downtown Raleigh. Since 2011, the number of retailers downtown has increased by 49%.
Businesses still rebuilding
Some business owners, while concerned about downtown Raleigh’s economic recovery, believe that the protests were worth the damage.
“I’ve stated from the beginning that even though I lost the glass, I don’t feel that bad because I see it like taking one for the team,” said Richard Bowden, owner of City Market Barber & Style Shop, which had its front window smashed during the protest. “Changes have to be made. I just see it as collateral damage I guess.”
Bowden does note, though, that he believes that the people responsible for the damage downtown were a distinct group from the vast majority of peaceful protesters.
“That group didn’t care — they were just knocking out anything as they walked down the street. They didn’t care if it was white-owned, Black-owned,” said Bowden, who is Black. “They were just trying to create havoc amongst peaceful protesters who had a real purpose out there.”
The barber shop had planned to open back up that Monday, about a week and a half after Governor Roy Cooper’s executive order allowing barber shops to reopen went into effect. Bowden boarded up his window and opened up as planned. He’s still waiting on a contracting company to come replace the window, but said that business is slowly returning.
Other businesses, like the Zen Succulent, Art of Style and Apex Outfitter, are still closed as they manage their insurance claims and try to rebuild.
Briggs Hardware, a store that has been open since 1865, might even leave downtown. Evelyn Davis, the owner of the store, told ABC 11 on Thursday, “I don’t feel safe down here,” and said she was upset by the police department’s handling of the protests.
Davis told ABC 11 her lease is up in two weeks and she hasn’t re-signed yet. The store, she noted, only brought in $25 in sales the week after downtown was damaged.
‘People aren’t coming back in mass’
Jennifer Martin, the executive director of Shop Local Raleigh, said she’s really concerned about the future of businesses right now, especially since most of them have really small margins, so the line between success and failure is pretty small.
“I went downtown for dinner Tuesday night and what struck me was just how quiet it is down there right now,” she said in an interview. “It’s just a different environment right now with everyone wearing masks and plywood covering the windows. People aren’t coming back in mass. Even the [businesses] that are doing curbside aren’t doing a lot of business.”
Martin warned there will be a lot of empty storefronts if local residents and the city doesn’t support them, leading to potentially more unemployment.
Local leaders like herself, she said, need to figure ways to help these businesses — but it is hard to determine how to best do that at the moment.
“It’s our job to figure out the answer,” she said. “And sometimes we have a playbook, or we have best practices to look at. But with this situation there is no best practice.”
The City of Raleigh recently allocated $1 million to a grant fund for small businesses in response to COVID-19. More than 154 businesses were funded. The Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and Innovate Raleigh have started a campaign to raise more money for the fund.
Federal aid running out
Pam Blondin, the owner of DECO, a gift store on Salisbury Street, said she is feeling more encouraged about the situation downtown than a few weeks ago.
She said her store has been able to get its sales back to between 40% to 50% of where they were before the coronavirus pandemic. She is doing scheduled shopping and limited hours. Customers are wearing masks and following other safety requirements.
With the help of a Paycheck Protection Program loan, she said she’s hopeful that DECO will be able to “chug along at current levels for several months.”
But, Blondin admits her store was lucky. DECO wasn’t damaged, so she was able to re-open quickly. Her neighbors — Apex Outfitter and Art of Style — both had serious damage and had a lot of their inventory stolen. They remain closed.
“They are facing a whole different set of challenges, sadly,” she said.
Blondin said she’s watching to see what will happen after the federal government’s $600 weekly unemployment subsidy runs out next month. “(It) will be interesting if that impacts sales,” she said.
But for others, there are real questions about how to keep business going sustainably. Yowell said Oak City Meatball would’ve probably closed already without money he received from the Paycheck Protection Program.
But he thinks businesses are likely to need more assistance, especially now that COVID-19 cases are spiking across the country again, and workers might not return to offices for the rest of the year.
For now, Oak City and many other restaurants downtown are just trying to take it week by week, he said.
“There’s no more PPP money coming down the highway, and it doesn’t look like there will be more unemployment (assistance from the federal government) after next month,” he said.
Once that assistance from PPP and unemployment runs out, he said, there will be a lot more suffering for businesses.
“Assuming we last long enough to suffer,” he said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported how George Floyd was killed. He died after a police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 2:53 PM.
