Small businesses hope downtown foot traffic returns — soon

With word that downtown employees would return, Satiya Amporful moved her Gaviidae Commons cultural apparel and products store from the ground floor to a larger space on the skyway level to capture more traffic.

While the store has seen 40% more business since the start of the year, it isn't enough to make it, she said.

The problem, Amporful and other downtown Minneapolis and North Loop retailers said, is that while almost 50% of downtown workers have returned on a hybrid schedule, their old habits of meeting people or wandering the skyways — and doing some shopping or seeking repair services or dry cleaning — have not.

So retailers from Amporful — a Navy veteran who launched Uniquely Global in 2019 — to pre-pandemic success stories like MartinPatrick3 in the North Loop have reached a critical moment. Even if sales are up again, they are now facing supply chain and inflation issues, making it critical to have more foot traffic.

Ever the optimists, they see glimmers of increased activity and hope once workers get used to a hybrid schedule, habits will evolve.

Greg Harris, a technical consultant at Skyway Techs, a mobile device, laptop and desktop computer repair shop in the Canadian Pacific building downtown, said parking garages are nearly half full, and he no longer feels like he's the only person working in his building.

"I can see that workers are back," he said.

Before the pandemic, most of Skyway Techs' customers were people whose employers didn't have a dedicated tech-repair team, or needed personal devices repaired, Harris said. Skyway Techs also provides on-site service to downtown companies.

After initial pandemic shutdown orders were lifted in 2020, Harris returned. But throughout the rest of that year and 2021, he only handled two or three orders a day. And some of those customers only needed help figuring out things like camera settings on new laptops for videoconferencing purposes.

In the past two and a half months, sales have nearly doubled compared to the winter months of 2021, Harris said.

Amporful said other stores are now slowly reopening along the skyways, creating more foot traffic and adding to the number of curious people who might stop in Uniquely Global. But turning a limited amount of window shoppers into paying customers remains difficult.

Amporful imports garments, artwork, jewelry and accessories through a partnership with artists in Ghana, where her husband has family, and other countries such as Guatemala, Morocco, Mexico and Kenya. Many of her designs are inspired by Japan, where she was raised.

Funded through personal savings, including her retirement funds, her business like most faced significant challenges during the pandemic. She was forced to shelter in place in Ghana during a trip, limiting access to her business and inventory, which resulted in her shutting down the company's online presence.

And she's at the point where the store needs to perform for her to stay in business.

To draw more people to Uniquely Global, Amporful is planning to host classes where people can learn to make organic African soaps and skin-care products, but also host cultural-awareness discussions.

"I want people to come in and have an experience," she said.

Standing in the way of more foot traffic downtown, however, is a stigma that downtown is unsafe, Amporful said.

They believe as more workers spend more time downtown, this will happen.

"They are the impetus to safety," Swindler said.

According to the most recent data from the Minneapolis Downtown Council, nearly 50% of the total downtown employees who worked in the office before the pandemic have returned in some capacity. That figure includes some of the more recent organizations that have begun returning over the past few weeks, like Xcel Energy and Wells Fargo.

For Swindler and husband Greg Walsh, who founded MartinPatrick3 in 1994, awaiting the return of more workers downtown is the latest in a long line of obstacles over the past 24 months for a store that was in expansion mode before the pandemic.

The state-ordered shutdown was longer than anticipated in spring 2020.

While many local stores joined national retailers and launched online sales to counter the shutdown, Swindler chose not to. He believed the cost would not prove a good investment for the long term.

When stores reopened, he decided to expand inventory again, this time adding women's clothing for the first time, to boost sales.

Combined with the company's steady interior design business, MartinPatrick3 maintained operations, but not without pain. The company employed roughly 38 people at the start of the pandemic, and about 70% were laid off to keep the company afloat, Swindler said.

As business picked up some over the course of the pandemic, former employees were hired back, but as with other businesses, the store had to pay higher wages.

Thanks to a healthy client base, financially, MartinPatrick3 is on pace to returning to where it was pre-pandemic, but it has taken two years, Swindler said. The company is also almost at full strength in employees.

But now a new challenge has arisen — supply-chain disruption.

"Thankfully, supply chain is happening now and not then," Swindler said. But it underscores the need for foot traffic to improve so problems don't start piling up.

Angela Lamb-Onayiga, owner of TiAngy Designs, an ethnic-apparel store in IDS Center, could not agree more.

Around the holidays, business was booming for Lamb-Onayiga, but fell sharply after Christmas as the season changed and COVID-19 omicron variant cases surged in Minnesota.

Over the past few weeks, there's been another noticeable uptick in business, she said.

Shipments have been delayed numerous times, causing her to switch airline carriers.

"I have to hold my breath every single time," she said.

TiAngy Designs, also supported by the Chameleon Shoppes program, sells handbags, art pieces and clothes made in Nigeria. Lamb-Onayiga has family in Africa.

TiAngy was previously located in Gaviidae Commons, and Lamb-Onayiga was preparing to move into a larger suite on the first floor in March 2020 when the pandemic hit and downtown emptied. Lamb-Onayiga, who also works a full-time social services job, switched to selling products online from her home. With constant delays for shipments, a depleted inventory led to her pausing the business for a short period.

Eventually, Lamb-Onayiga reconnected with the Chameleon Shoppes and settled into the IDS Center in May, aided by a small loan from the Small Business Association, she said.

Despite the daily struggle of running her business, she has managed to keep a positive attitude. With warmer months approaching, she anticipates shoppers will be more inclined to purchase her items to match with spring and summer outfits.

"It's a lot to run this kind of business, but I think it's more than worthwhile because people just can't get these [anywhere]," she said.