MEMPHIS, Tenn — As the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) looks for new leadership, businesses on and around Main St, are seeing positive changes from Open on Main, a DMC initiative.
The program is the DMC’s way to increase the number of Main St. retail shops. The program gives small business owners the opportunity to open their storefront without having to pay rent for a year. Since the program started, some have left Downtown, and others are opening up for the first time.
Althea Young, owner of No Basis Co., a customizable clothing shop, moved from Cleveland, Ohio, to Downtown Memphis more than a year ago.
“I was [Downtown] from May of 2022 up until May of 2023,” Young said.
She made an unexpected move out of the location just months ago.
“Some things changed during the one year that I was signed on with the Open on Main program,” Young said. “Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to sign on long-term.”
On Nov. 1, she’ll start operating out of a new location inside the Arrow Creative in Cooper Young.
“Now that I’m in this creative space, I’m going to get back to grassroots. Trying some new stuff,” Young said.
While she did not stay Downtown, Young is grateful for the program and even keeps up with the new tenants of her old spot on Monroe, sisters Lindsey and Kristen Archer, co-owners of ARCHd.
ARCHd is located on Monroe and is an art-based company. The sisters opened the storefront about six weeks ago through the Open on Main program and love being Downtown.
“We started ARCHd in 2014, and we’ve been slowly building through the years, whether it’s been Cooper Young Festival and other small markets like that and shows,” Archer said. “But we’ve never had our own brick and mortar space - a physical space where we can put all of our collection under one roof - and so we kind of jumped at that opportunity.”
While the location on Monroe will only house ARCHd for one year, Lindsey is excited for the growth the year will bring and the opportunity to see if Downtown could be a long-term location for her and her sister.