week of 1/29/03
 
 
 
  Doing business on Main Street
By Scott McLeod

Winter has come, and succes-sful downtown businesses know that it is time to hold spending and wait for the good times.

“There is a rhythm to business in the mountains,” said David Erickson from inside an empty Twigs and Leaves Gallery on Main Street in Waynesville. “It’s geared to the calendar: you starve for the first half of the year and feast the second half.”

Jon Bowman, who with his wife Jamie owns Deja View Gallery on Main Street in Waynesville, has about the same assessment.

“You pretend to be a squirrel and try to stash some of the fourth quarter money to make it through the winter,” said Bowman.

Despite all the dire warnings about the national economy, many of the small downtown businesses are holding their own. Economic development officials wrestle with economic incentives for large employers, often ignoring the small businesses who in fact are the country’s top producer of jobs. Left to their own planning, many of them are surviving — and some are thriving — despite the stagnant national economy and the somewhat dire sales reports from huge franchise stores.

“This past December was our best month ever,” said Bowman, wondering why national retailers bemoan 4 and 5 percent growth margins.

For Erickson, the whole year turned out pretty good.

“We were up 13 percent for 2002 over 2001,” said Erickson.

As national, state and even local government leaders bemoan the drop in tax dollars due to plant closings, Western North Carolina’s small businesses may be a bright spot in an otherwise down economy which has hit manufacturing the hardest and high-tech sectors second.

“We just haven’t felt the bad economy,” said Erickson. “We’ve had periods of uncertainty, but we think our particular niche is somewhat immune,” said Erickson, who has operated his gallery for four years.

Teresa Pennington, a Waynesville artist who owns her own downtown gallery, said her business is up about 30 percent from a year ago. She credits much of her continued success to the work of the Downtown Waynesville Association.

“I don’t know how we’d survive without the DWA. It is the best thing that has happened to downtown,” said Pennington.

She said the promotions that are advertised by the DWA, along with long-term aesthetics that have created a great shopping experience, help downtown businesses succeed.