The RI Small Business Village

Unlocking Local Economies: Rhode Island's Small Business Village at Providence Place

In this episode, we explore a pioneering initiative designed to elevate small businesses through a temporary retail village inside Providence Place Mall. Hear how this innovative approach offers real-world lessons on adaptability, community partnership, and the potential for scalable models supporting local economies, especially amid challenging economic environments.

Key Topics:

• The concept behind the Rhode Island Small Business Village and its strategic timing during summer events
• How community partnerships and mall collaborations made this pop-up possible
• The role of local investors like Centerville Bank and the importance of private-public collaboration
• Design and curatorial approach: creating a curated, store-like experience under one roof
• The potential to scale similar models across other locations or turn them into more permanent fixtures
• The importance of agility and reimagining existing infrastructure for economic revitalization
• Strategies to sustain small businesses in a competitive and uncertain economic climate
• The community impact of local entrepreneurship and micro-business support initiatives
• How local control and community engagement can redefine commercial spaces

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro to economic development strategies for small businesses
00:29 - Unveiling the Rhode Island Small Business Village concept
01:09 - The impact of summer tourism and international events on local business visibility
02:03 - How the idea originated and the role of Skills for Rhode Island's Future
02:46 - Supporting micro-businesses and creating experiential retail opportunities
03:57 - The evolution from temporary pop-up to potential permanent spaces
04:42 - Partnerships with Providence Place Mall and other stakeholders
05:56 - Curating a cohesive shopping experience under a single roof
07:04 - Scaling and evolving the model to other markets and formats
07:46 - The influence of community banks and local sponsors
08:47 - Repurposing existing infrastructure to support small businesses
10:00 - Navigating economic challenges with innovative thinking
13:38 - Maintaining motivation amid economic setbacks
15:56 - The importance of community impact and long-term vision
18:04 - Final thoughts on expanding and sustaining small business initiatives

Transcript

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Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Welcome to Bartholomew Town. It's Bill Bartholomew. When we talk about economic development, especially on the small business level, sometimes things that would seem obvious are left off of or left out of the discussion and giving small businesses more visibility in places where people already are. It's not a novel concept, but it's not something that we have seen pop up anyway at places like malls in recent times. And that is exactly what is happening now with a new initiative at the Providence Place Mall that's going to put fr small businesses on. It's already happening. It's running through the end of August. And as a chance for small businesses and for you to connect with our small business community in real time. Before we get started, let's have our guests introduce themselves so we can associate the voice with the human. Starting with Nina, thanks so much for your time today and great to see you again.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Hi, Bill. Great to be with you again. Nina Piante with Skills for Rhode Island's Future, and I'm excited to talk about the Rhode Island Small Business Village.

Bill Bartholomew 0:58

Awesome. And Paula.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Thank you, Bill. So good to be here. Thank you for having us. Paula Fernandez, community development officer with Centerville Bank.

unknown 1:08

All right.

Bill Bartholomew 1:08

So the Rhode Island Small Business Village, that's what we're talking about. It's a temporary retail marketplace located inside Providence Place. It was designed to showcase local Rhode Island entrepreneurs and give them high visibility during a busy time of the year, the summer tour season, obviously, this in tandem with the summer of soccer. Now Rhode Island is the epicenter of World Cup action for the last couple of days here. But that's brought a lot of new people to Providence. That was an effective strategy. Some people complaining ahead of time, well, the hotels aren't full or something like that. It ended up being a pretty big win. But that is exactly what it is. It's visibility, level one at the Providence Place Mall, right by that Apple store. It's already open. It's going to run through the end of August and it's along with mall hours. So, Nina, where did this idea come from? Because again, it's like it's a great idea, but you didn't have to invest in a $117 million facility to get these small businesses in front of huge crowds.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

No, but if somebody wants to invest that kind of money, we're up for it, right? So, Bill, as you know, um part of our work at Skills for Rhode Island's Future is we run the Rhode Island Small Business Hub, where we help support small businesses with business support services. And we started getting a lot of phone calls. I'm going to say in February, March, when there was a lot of conversations around tourism this summer, what was the World Cup going to bring? And small businesses were trying to figure out what their part was in that space. And many of the small businesses that we work with are small. These are micro businesses, fewer than five people working for them. And they didn't necessarily see themselves as vendors in the fan zone. They didn't see themselves as kind of these pop-up, these one-offs. And so we started going to the drawing board to say, well, what can we do to make sure that we create opportunities for all small businesses to be front and center and visible? And keeping in the spirit of our work at the Rhode Island Small Business Hub, we wanted this to be almost experiential in nature. So we were looking at small businesses who've had that itch to see if they can grow, if retail could be an environment for them. So we would be able to kind of pair their desire to be front and center, try to get into the action of the economic boom that was coming into the area while also teaching critical business skills along the way.

Bill Bartholomew 3:26

Yeah. And with that, kind of in tandem is the education component that can allow for these to be scaled up to either sustained, I don't know if they would be in the mall necessarily on a sustained permanent basis. Maybe that's an idea. We'll get to that later. But when you like look at it from that perspective, Paula, this is not just standing something up, let's say like your Christmas village or something like that, which is truly a temporary moment. The idea here is the opportunity for growth and to stand up businesses or entrepreneurs or micro businesses or however you want to frame it. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Absolutely. This is about supporting the businesses, but these are local businesses that are creating jobs, they're bringing energy with their products, they're positioning the state, they're, you know, the excitement around what they have to bring to the state of Rhode Island into our neighborhoods. And it's really been a great opportunity to be part of that work to ensure that small businesses have the opportunity to increase visibility, to showcase their products in this way. Coming from a basement, having to produce and think about how you market your product to now be in a place like this has been such a great experience. And we are just so thrilled to partner with skills and this test and this idea.

Bill Bartholomew 4:41

What is, what's new about this in terms of, if anything, Nina, in terms of permitting or in terms of partnerships, what what did it take to get this to actually happen?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, well, let me first start by saying we needed investors like Centerville Bank, right? And so our first call to action was great, we had an idea. We went to the mall. They had great prime retail location. Bill, you mentioned we're right across from the Apple store on the first floor of the mall. Um, there was a will by multiple players. And when there's a will, then there's always a way to make it happen. So the mall was very interested. They understood the opportunity very quickly. Um, they had space available and they wanted to make sure that the mall was able to provide not only for small businesses, but to create a unique shopping experience for people that were coming in here. So I want to give a huge shout out to the Providence Place Mall and the Centennial Management Group who went to the drawing board with us and said, How do we get this done? Once we knew we had them as a partner, we then went out to our prospective sponsors, Centerville, jumping in early because they saw the value and understood the need of small businesses. And as Paola mentioned, taking a microbusiness from their basement into prime retail location, um, that opportunity doesn't happen often. And so I think what makes us unique is that we are really curated as a singular shopping experience, right? And so when you walk in, because we had to meet mall guidelines and mall standards, it's not like you're walking into seven different tents. You're walking into a store, and as you turn, there's a different moment of shopping, um, but it is beautifully curated. You can walk through and shop 50 plus small businesses all under a singular area, offering something for everyone. So we have a little bit of a food hall featuring some of our local confectioners. We have coffee shops, we have other people represented, and we have some souvenir-based stuff. So it was really designed so that you can come in and it's kind of a one-stop shop of all things Rhode Island, but yet under a shopping experience that is no different than if you're walking into a department store.

Bill Bartholomew 7:03

Super cool. And how can we scale this up to other locations and how can this become something that's a little bit more permanent? I think of there was a great event that took place when I was living in New York called the Brooklyn Night Bazaar. And this was an evening deal. You had bands playing, you had a kind of just this awesome uh evening crowd-oriented type of event, but that was something that was sustained and a lot of artisans and micro businesses were able to get in on and really launch from. Um, Paula, when you look at that that this as a as an initiative, do you see the potential to scale this up to not only different locations, but different hours, different styles, different target audiences?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Absolutely. All of that, and for us as a community bank, I just want to say when when Nina called with this idea, we had been looking for an opportunity to leverage this summer and all the activities in the summer. But the the goal for us and and the the what we wanted to achieve was local impact. So across everything, it was local. It was how do we use this moment to ensure that our businesses can leverage this beyond the summer and further? So, this idea, I think, you know, we all kind of were thinking, okay, let's kind of test this out and see what happens. What we're seeing at the mall right now, I think is an incredible model for what we can do in the future and all that you described. And I think beyond just the access to the space, it's also supporting the small businesses with resources. For us as a community bank, we want to make sure that we are supporting their growth, how they're thinking about scaling up, how they're thinking about their success, and how we can play a part in supporting them going forward. So I absolutely would love to continue to see things like this and continue to bring our local partners to ensure that we're supporting businesses just beyond the summer. I think this is a great opportunity. And we're seeing the businesses even support each other. I've been to the business village several times. And when the business owners are there, they're talking to each other, they're collaborating, they're they're really becoming a network and in ways that I didn't even anticipate. And I love to see this continue. I know Nina's probably thinking about it. What could that look like? But it would be great to see different spaces utilized in this way and really having local partners say, raise their hands and say, we want to be part of supporting these, these, or these companies.

Bill Bartholomew 11:51

Yeah. Because it borrows from DIY culture as well, which is some is part of my background. I mean that from the the arts kind of view of that, which is to repurpose and utilize the space that you're given and then execute the vision versus we need the perfect spot before we can move. And when you look at Rhode Island right now, oh, you know, maybe we could redevelop the armory, let's send send a bunch of bozos to Philadelphia to create rehab, all kinds of chaotic numbers that are unpredictable, unstable markets right now, unpredictable future, petrodollar shifting, who knows what's happening, AI, et cetera, right? But what we do know is that right now we've got a lot of small businesses, a lot of micro businesses, we get a lot of partners who want to see economic growth through those businesses. And we've got an economy right now that's ranked, what? I saw some, I don't know how believable it is, that we've got the worst economy in the country, according to CNBC right now. So why in the hell not try everything to convert places on a temporary pop-up basis and modular style elevate businesses at once? We could do it, we could start what's start this weekend almost, right? Nina, do you have that kind of mentality? I know we can't start this weekend, but that mentality, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Bill, I think you know our work enough to know. That's what we try to do is push boundaries. And how do we think about supporting the people part of economic development differently, right? And that's what we do at our agency. We want to try to look at different ways. Um, while there are great policies, there's great investments that are being made, could we push the boundaries to think of it differently? And I think, you know, when we started this, I had a few people say, Nina, why are you going into retail? I said, I'm not going into retail. We're creating that next experiential level for small businesses who want that retail experience, but putting safeguards around it, making it affordable, giving them those learning moments. And I think we need to create that, right? We do that on the youth side with internships and you know, externships for adults. Small businesses also need that type of nurturing. Um, and they're such a big part of our um economic landscape here in Rhode Island that if we don't start thinking differently, like, can we get them in, get them an LLC, get them a, you know, get them their status that they need to start their business? Can we even give them a business plan? Sure. This is that next phase of development. Now let's put it into execution. And I think why this is interesting, and Bill, I think you're you're alluding to this, is we have these great spaces that need to be reinvented. How are we leveraging existing infrastructure and assets so we don't have to build from scratch and we can move quickly to create these economic opportunities for small businesses? It's the very stuff that excites our organization to think and push um conventional thinking on how small businesses need support. And again, even better when we have sponsors to be able to help us do that.

Bill Bartholomew 14:45

Yeah, absolutely. And that's the holistic approach that makes a place function, makes a community function. So um clear as day that this is a multi-party, um, this is your idea, this is Centerville, and a lot of minds and dollars behind this. Uh, final thought here as we're in the middle of the summer and just kind of looking at right now from each of your standpoint with some of this bad economic news in Rhode Island, I think there is a general tendency, and when I say bad economic news, I mean these CNBC studies that have us the 48th worst place to do business, the the 50th worst economy, all this kind of stuff. Uh whether it is uh fair or not in terms of the metrics and whether or not there we would even agree with that sentimentally. Um how do you motivate yourselves in an environment that it's no matter what, it is not easy. It is not a scenario where you are swimming with the current all the way in this environment right here. So what are some of the ways that you think positively and keep working in this environment when it is basically uh everybody tells you to get out of here because it's the worst in the country?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, I mean, uh so I have a lot of thoughts on the CNBC polling, right? And I look at the metrics and sure, do metrics matter? Yes, but do they tell the whole picture? No. And you know, um, Bill, it did take everybody rolling up their sleeves. And I'm gonna say what keeps us going and what keeps us motivated is Rhode Island is so small, there's only two degrees of separation between everybody in our state. And when you're willing to try, when you're willing to innovate, and when you have people who trust in your model, things can happen. And I think this is a great example. We had to have, you know, the the private folks, whether it was the mall or our sponsors, we had the state get behind this, right? The commerce secretary, the governor, we have the mayor in Providence get behind it. We were able to build something tangible that everybody can see the immediate benefit of. And I feel like we need to do more of that. And and hopefully, slowly that'll start changing the way in which we approach small business development. And I think one of the things, Bill, that's critical for our work is you know, everybody's asking, well, how successful has it been? How much money have you raised? And I'm like, listen, it takes time to build that. And so what I don't want the takeaway to be is did everybody become a millionaire overnight? No, we know that's not gonna happen. But if we continue to invest and we continue to build, growth will happen and it happens over time. Um, and so I hope that this is that seed that we're planting to get people to think, especially as we're reimagining Providence Place Mall, it's still in its due diligence phase with new ownership. Let's think about it. Let's make a permanent space in the mall for small businesses that can rotate in and out, and that's part of their learning incubator. And if it can be a distributed responsibility in terms of funding, why not take the risk, right?

Bill Bartholomew 17:50

That's interesting. More local control of the mall if it if the due diligence goes through with Mr. Paolino, obviously a portion of that group, but uh local businesses, more local control, that's a that sounds good in a moment like this. Um Paolo, your thoughts kind of at the environment, at least anecdotally, people say it's horrible. Maybe it is uh it's tough to tell how how to break down those kinds of polls or metrics. But what motivates you right now?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

So um I have an incredible job. I sit at the intersection of community and the bank and the business of the bank. And my charge is community impact. So community impact is one of our priorities in our strategic plan. We are committed to the communities we serve. We show up into the communities. And for me, the the small business village is the perfect idea and the perfect initiative that I love to get involved in because it's about listening to the community. It's about identifying something that should be happening in our state. It's making that investment. So we have to put our money where our mouth is, but it's also showing up as a true partner. So for me, I love initiatives where we are able to come in and say, all right, we are maybe sponsoring, investing, but we also want to bring all of the resources that are inside of our institution to support the initiative. And so we activate internally. I mean, Nina can attest, we've activated three different teams at Central Bank that are saying, what do you need? How do we support you? What can we bring to the table? And while this is a sponsorship that it's over the summer, we are here for the long run. Um depending on where businesses are, we are ready to support them. So uh initiatives for me, I think that give me a lot of hope. Rhode Island is very resilient. And uh coming together as partners is where I see a lot of community impact. And that keeps me motivated. It keeps me going. Sometimes ideas may not come out the way you're thinking, or they might not come to fruition, but setting the table to say, hey, I have an idea that I think might have good impact in the community. We might change some things around. Um, it's what we are here to do. And I think as a community bank, that is the sort of secret sauce. We can respond to community needs. And that keeps me going because, you know, when Nina calls and says, We have this idea that we want to test out, we can say, Yeah, let's go. Let's let's participate, let's, let's be involved. And I think Rhode Island has so much more potential. Um, we're all connected and and we can do great things.

Bill Bartholomew 20:25

Paula and uh Nina, thanks so much for your time today. This is a great initiative, the Rhode Island Small Business Village. Stop by Providence Place. It'll be there until the end of August. And uh who knows what happens next. Maybe we'll have maybe we'll turn the mall into a twin the maybe we'll do one in the mall parking lot at least, 24 7 or something like that. I don't know what it'll lead to. There's a lot of spaces though. That is a fact. And when we need as much housing as we do, uh maybe we should be thinking about converting some of these commercial spaces uh it at least in the short term into these types of villages. So thanks so much for your time.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Bill, thank you as always. Thank you so much.