The art of retail in downtown Tacoma

Mix a desire for downtown retail with hard work, handmade products and free rent, and you get three boutiques opening this summer in an artistic, entrepreneurial experiment.

Through the Spaceworks Tacoma program, Jennifer Adams, Tiffanie Peters and Susan Thompson are putting out temporary shingles. Spaceworks is a joint venture between the City of Tacoma, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber and nonprofit arts support group Shunpike to use art to fill empty storefronts.

“A lot of communities have just done the static (art installations) because it’s easier. (Tacoma is) always trying to show how the arts are an economic engine,” said Amy McBride, the city’s arts administrator.

“Artists are entrepreneurs,” she said. “They’re small businesses, too.”

Downtown property owners signed up to donate empty retail space for three to six months of artistic use. The artists won’t pay rent, only utilities. To simplify the process for building owners, McBride said, Shunpike signed the leases and the artists sublease from it.

Shunpike, based in Seattle, is operating a similar program called Seattle Storefronts in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. It began earlier this year.

Spaceworks Tacoma will officially kick off the effort Thursday with a block party downtown, but Peters, Adams and Thompson already have been preparing their stores.

Spaceworks organizers say the program isn’t intended to be a long-term solution to filling vacant commercial space.

“It’s always been promoted as a temporary use,” McBride said. “The ultimate goal is to have the property owners lease their spaces” for full price.

“I can see an analogy of those home-staging shows,” she said. “People create the house that they want the buyer to live in. This is staging ‘community.’ People look at a space that might be raw and naked and they can see that this might be a spot for (a) business.”

Of course, entrepreneurs like Jennifer Adams hope for something more.

“I would love it to be wildly successful and make lots and lots of money,” Adams said, laughing, then said more seriously, “I’d love it to be successful and something I keep open.”

Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546
kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com

SUSAN THOMPSON

The Pottery Annex, 913 Pacific Ave.

Hours of operation: 1-5 p.m. starting July 29

Products: Handmade pottery, including mugs and casserole dishes.

Thompson, 61, taught music at an elementary school for years, but for the last eight, she’s been doing pottery.

“I like functional stuff – the idea that people will be using it and handling it and putting things in it,” Thompson said.

For her temporary store, Thompson plans to create pottery there on a wheel, but she’ll do the firing at home in her kilns.

She’s been selling her work at weekend art fairs and farmers markets in the region, as well as online through Etsy.com. A gift shop on Anderson Island, where her family has a weekend home, sells some of her creations.

Thompson said she makes about $8,000 a year now by selling her pottery.

“I think pottery isn’t something people are buying a whole lot of, when you can go to Costco for whatever and get a mug for a buck or two,” she said. “People who appreciate things that are made by hand, they’re willing to pay a bit more for that.”

She sells her mugs for about $17 apiece.

The back-office operation doesn’t worry her too much. She’s been accepting credit cards for some time, and she already gathers sales tax and submits it to the state.

“That’s easy enough because you can do that on the Internet,” she said.

Thompson had tried to arrange temporary retail space downtown a few months ago after reading in The News Tribune about a precursor to Spaceworks, but it didn’t work out.

She thinks getting Shunpike involved made all the difference.

“Shunpike has some weight,” she said. “The landlords know it’s not just some flake trying to rent their place.”

JENNIFER ADAMS

Fly, 904 Broadway

Hours of operation: Adams plans to have the store open for the Thursday event, but the grand opening may be a week later. General hours of operation will be Thursday-Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Products: Items from about 15 different local artists. Fly will be a mix of gallery and retail space.

Adams, 35, has been working in retail off and on for years. She is best known for starting Tacoma is for Lovers, a craft fair that brings together dozens of local artists.

Tacoma is for Lovers is “not really retail since we’ve only done them as fundraising (efforts) so far, but that’s how I got to meet a lot of the artists,” Adams said.

Adams said she’s in talks with dozens of local craftspeople to bring goods to Fly on a consignment basis.

Opening her own store has always been in the back of her mind, Adams said.

“Before Tacoma is for Lovers, I thought about an online thing. But since I’m computer-challenged, and I wanted to raise money for a friend of mine, I did the craft fair instead,” she said.

Spaceworks is temporary and low-risk, so it was the perfect opportunity to try running a store.

“I’ve done enough small-business retail to know something about it, and I have a lot of friends who are small-business owners so I have that support network,” Adams said.

Adams teaches photography on an adjunct basis at the School of the Arts and through MetroParks. She does some work through other artists groups and freelances. Plus she has two children under age 5.

“I’m going to sort of try and balance everything and see how that works,” she said. “The boutique being an experiment, I don’t want to give up jobs.”

When asked whether she was intimidated by the idea of running a store, she said, “Yes, I absolutely am.”

“I walked into the space and I (had) this feeling of panic overcome me,” she said. “I have really great friends and my boyfriend is really great. They said, ‘Hey, we have furniture we can borrow. We’ll organize a work party. We’ll watch your kids.’ ”

TIFFANIE PETERS

Chiffon, 915 Pacific Ave.

Hours of operation: Chiffon will have a soft opening on Thursday, the night of the block party. Peters said she’s still deciding when she’ll be open, but 11 a.m.-6 p.m. is her idea.

Products: Peters designs and makes women’s jewelry and clothing, and men’s accessories.

Peters, 34, grew up in Shelton but has lived in California for the past several years while working for various fashion designers and starting her own clothing line while going to college.

She worked in downtown Los Angeles for an independent designer, which gave her a broad experience in running a small business.

“I did everything: office manager, ordering supplies, everything,” she said, adding that she learned some lessons from the owner, who wasn’t that easy to work with.

“ ‘I’m the designer,’ ” Peters said, describing the owner’s philosophy – “ ‘it’s my way or the highway, even though my highway is going to hell.’ ”

She decided to come home, and currently makes a living by working admissions for a Tacoma massage school and teaching courses in fashion design.

Peters said she’s not worried about the back-office requirements of business ownership. Her experience in L.A. will come into play, plus she took advantage of Shunpike’s offer of business basics – a tutorial in licensing, bookkeeping and the rest. Plus, her father owns a small business and has offered to mentor her.

She’s been working on inventory for awhile.

Last week, she said she was awake until 5:30 a.m., designing and creating. “I made some awesome coffee and was good to go,” she said. Keeping up stock is “going to be a continuing process.”

“I’ll make it happen,” she said. “You don’t need to sleep.”