PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Small businesses say Portsmouth's rolled out the welcome mat for them. Tuesday, the city agreed to designate an area as the Innovation District. News 3 told you when the plans were first discussed and then tabled and now we're following through as the city moves forward.
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In downtown Portsmouth's High Street Corridor, roughly half of the land is dedicated to parking or undeveloped, according to the city's GIS Parcel data, but that's changing when Portsmouth's Innovation District develops.
"When I drive down the west end of High Street I just see potential," said Timothy Armstrong who found potential for his own small business, Omnicruit International, on High Street. He uses Bloom Coworking's shared space to run his business, recruiting nurses from overseas to help with nursing shortages.
He's been glad to grow a business in Portsmouth.
"Growing a business is hard, it's not for the faint of heart. But it's wonderful and fulfilling. And doing it in Portsmouth is just the icing on the cake," said Armstrong. "When we pulled up [to Bloom Coworking] it was a shell. They were still under construction, but I saw the lighting, the walls the structure. I knew I wanted to be in this old space with old bones and create new things." He said Bloom and the city helped him get started.
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Now, he hopes to see other small businesses grow in the area.
"I want Portsmouth to be the envy of the cities. I want to have spaces where artists like my daughter can come and paint. Where young mechanics can come in and find a garage with all the tools they need to do their work, where we're supporting small businesses and building them up, incubating them so to speak." said Armstrong. " Also of course we want to see housing come."
Crystal Colohan runs Clearly Crystal LLC making wearable items. She sells out of Bloom Marketand said she chose to operate in Portsmouth for a reason.
Watch: Small businesses ready to 'bloom' in downtown Portsmouth
"[When looking at Portsmouth] it was like a welcome mat, a welcome to our city. Being here they pop in, they check on things," said Colohan.
She also thinks small businesses are important.
"It was such a big deal, I teared up when I got my business license, looking at that and saying this is mine," said Colohan. "It means something. When you see people walking down the street or even right next door and they're wearing a pair of my earrings and I walk into get coffee, that's special."
The Bloom spaces shared by Colohan and Armstrong were once vacant.
"You know this space that Bloom sits in was vacant for over 20 years," explained Michelle Wren, executive director for Portsmouth Partnership. "So it was definitely a spotlighted piece of property. We had apartments above but nobody had taken the retail space."
Watch: City officials in Portsmouth want feedback on creating an Innovation District
Now the area is drawing more people.
"You see people walking. You've got a coffee shop, you've got a brewery," said Wren.
Wren hopes it will draw more as Bloom becomes one of the anchors for Portsmouth's Innovation District.
"For an innovation district to survive the entrepreneurial community is kind of a pillar to that. So they actually redrew the district around us to make sure we were included in that," said Wren.
Tuesday's designation is encouraging to many — seen by some of Portsmouth's businesses and economic development groups as a step forward.
"Now the area will have that money for infrastructure and then have mixed use projects go in there. They're already on the books to go in," said Wren. "[It will] create vibrancy in a place that was once dead, vacant for so long, just dormant."
Watch: First 'Shop the Block' highlights small businesses on Portsmouth's High Street
"We moved here before we knew it was the innovation district, so we kind of hit the lottery of businesses," said Armstrong.
"What do you think that it will do for your business?" asked News 3 reporter Erika Craven.
"It'll give us the amount of exposure we need because the plans for Zone 2 which is further west on High Street will be to have a wellness zone. I think that will give us the opportunity to reach out to some local customers. Because our nurses are coming from overseas, but right now we aren't placing them in the Hampton Roads area," said Armstrong.
"We will have people coming – and I can tell you it's already happening – that have not been [in the area] in a while and will go, 'I had no idea it is like this,'" said Colohan.
The Innovation District is the area generally bounded by London Boulevard to the north, County Street to the south, Martin Luther King Expressway to the west, and Downtown to the east near Effingham Street. Plans for the Innovation District include a mix of spaces for creative businesses and people to live and play. You can find the city's plans here.
"We need to attract a diversity of customers and a diversity of people. We all know we need a grocery store. I'd like to see an auto mechanic shop – all local. I would love to turn this back into Main Street America where we have everything we need in walking distance," said Armstrong.
The goal is to grow jobs in the area, improve future conditions, and help correct and balance past inequities.
The city's getting federal and state funding for the project, but there's more planning to do. Council members said they're working out a policy to ensure equity for minority businesses and residents as the project moves forward.
