This “Homegrown Project” Offers a Place To Thrive for Small Business Owners

Pop-up shops in Berwyn, IL. (Source: Author.)

To make something big, we must start small. At Strong Towns we talk about taking one small step forward at a time, making incremental changes and adjusting to the environment as we go along in developing a Strong Town. Berwyn, Illinois, a suburban city outside of Chicago, did just that by paying attention to their community needs and discovering what they could do right now.

“We had a gap in our offerings and our resources for startups, so we started brainstorming the best way to support our local businesses,” said Kendra Shaw, Berwyn Shops project manager. 

Berwyn noticed a need for community-centered places in their city and took thoughtful, incremental actions in filling it. Berwyn Shops: A Homegrown Project, is a nest of twelve 12-by-15-foot cottage-style shops designed to be a personable incubator spot for beginning businesses. This simple design gives business owners the opportunity to experiment with the local market before making a large investment into a full-blown storefront operation. 

Berwyn vendors at the pop-up shops’ grand opening celebration. (Source: Author.)

Much like the small pop-up shops in Muskegon, Michigan (our 2018 Strongest Town winner), Berwyn effectively lowers the bar to entry for business owners and is a more cost-effective investment for the community. One lesson we learned from Muskegon is you know you’re doing something right when the community responds. Since the beginning of this project, Berwyn has involved the community and the community has responded and taken the initiative to engage and support the efforts in creating a people-centered place. 

Before the official opening weekend, the community wanted to be involved in building up the shops. About 80 individuals assisted in painting the small buildings before the area was open to the public. They met the vendors and the whispers of what was being constructed on Roosevelt Road quickly turned into excitement for the community as a whole.

“It's wild how many people ended up being out there on Friday and this weekend,” Shaw said in reference to the shop's first opening on June 3, 2022, which lasted through Sunday. Until mid-December when they close to make space for new vendors, Berwyn shops will continue to open on the weekends. 

Shaw spoke about how the shops were non-stop busy the first day, and two vendors completely sold out of all products by the end of the weekend rush. 

“People were ready to come out, they’d heard about it and wanted to be involved as much as they could,” said Shaw. 

These compact buildings are truly a space created with community growth in mind. During the months that the main store fronts will be closed—so the new vendors can prep their space—the city is encouraging pop-up vendors to gather and continue on with developing the charm of the city and creating a space for locals to meander about. Table vendors are also welcomed to gather around the main buildings every second Saturday of the month during the on-season, creating a more diverse environment.

A special element to the Berwyn Shops is not only their charming, small, carefully used, personalized mini storefronts, but the joint effort to make the area truly a people-centered, community growth space.

In addition to business owners having a manageable small space, vendors work collaboratively with other vendors by attending joint business advising sessions and workshops to help grow their knowledge in business ownership and marketing. Starting business owners have the opportunity to learn topics ranging from interior shop design, to how to calculate your Spotify account into your taxes. 

(Source: Author.)

Sometimes, the biggest and best things come in small forms. “Small, incremental bets is how we start creating resilient and adaptable cities,” says Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn. 

“For us, it was first listening to the current business community and getting them involved from the beginning and learning how to use our resources to support them,” said Shaw. “We talked way in advance about how we could promote their business as we moved forward.”

Shaw mentioned as the idea grew more into a reality a lot of modifying and incremental adjustments were made to bring everything together. She spoke about how they pulled inspiration from other similar community efforts like the Batavia Boardwalk Shops (less than an hour away from Berwyn), and adapted their ideas to better fit Berwyn. This project was a lot of work to set up, but with the community being the driving force for change in their town, it was destined to be a successful build toward people-centered places. After all, people love environments that are built for them.

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