Looking to get out of the house
Minority-owned businesses in Hudson struggle to find affordable real estate
When Eris Shakesphere’s daughter left for college in 2017 she turned to baking to help pay the tuition bills. In addition to working full-time at an insurance company, she began making custom cakes, treats and specialty-sauced chicken wings and sold them via a Facebook page.
“As it grows, it takes over my home,” Shakesphere said. “My ultimate goal is to have a space for my business.”
For Shakesphere and many other minority and womenowned small business owners in Hudson, it isn’t easy to purchase a space and open up shop. Real estate costs are rising, driven in part by newcomers moving from New York City. For many of them, Hudson is home and it is where they want to open the shop of their dreams.
“In recent years we have had a huge influx of people coming to Hudson from New York City and they buy up everything,” Shakespere said. “They come in, they buy it, they renovate it, and then the prices triple. It makes it hard for people like me.”
Shakesphere is one of 13 minority-owned businesses who received a grant this year from the nonprofit Galvan Foundation to help them grow. For some, like 3J customs, a T-shirt company owned by Jamar Johnson, the money was crucial to keeping them afloat.
“Honestly without (the grant), due to COVID-19, my whole businesses would have sunk,” Johnson said. “It helped me get everything together and stay grounded.”
Johnson had looked at retail spaces but decided that because of the high cost of rent in Hudson he will contine
working from home.
“Given the popularity of Hudson as a tourist destination, many of the places on Warren Street are rather expensive and unaffordable for people just looking to expand their business out of their home,” said Dan Kent, vice president of initiatives at the
Galvan Foundation.
Population in Hudson has been declining for the last 10 years. At the same time, the cost to live — in particular, the cost of renting or buying a home — is increasing dramatically, and wages are not increasing, according to Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, a policy, advocacy, and research group for the area.
“It becomes harder to purchase an apartment when you’ve got people who have the earning levels of Columbia County competing with the earning levels of people from New York City,” Kent said. The average median household income is $39,000 in Hudson, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Warren Street used to sustain a greater variety of businesses — everything from charming junk shops to fried chicken places, said Tom Depietro, Common Council President for the city.
“The acceleration of fancy businesses on Warren Street has definitely pushed out some of the businesses who have a smaller margin for making money that served other communities in Hudson, not just tourists,” Depietro said. “One of the hopes is that some of those businesses will find a home off Warren Street, but what that will require is a
change in our zoning.”
Hudson’s zoning code, like many across the country, is a product of a 1970s mentality, which prefers areas to be residential only and prioritizes a car culture, Depietro said.
“We are trying to bring back a more urban style of zoning that favors walking for one thing, and favors greater mixed zoning communities,” Depietro said.
Despite Warren Street not being affordable for locals, it does help bring foot traffic for all businesses in Hudson, said Tiffany Garriga, the owner of her home-business Moisturize Me, and a Board of Alderman member for the Second Ward.
“We can’t really afford
to eat there but our children can get jobs there,” Garriga said. “In one way it helps and in one way it doesn’t.”
After working in a factory, nursing home and physical therapist’s office, and finding no moisturizer was sufficient, Garriga decided to make her own out of all-natural products.
“This pandemic is leaving people in a position where we are questioning ourselves should we put our business on pause,” Garriga said. “It is hard when you expect certain sales and they aren’t coming in ... It is incredibly hard when you are trying to make sure you have enough to put food on the table, and also have enough to keep the lights on.”
Garriga was not a recipient of the Galvan Foundation grant but she
hopes to find other funding opportunities. The Galvan Foundation is creating a low-income loan program. It is also planning a residential complex called The Depot, which will have four commercial spaces downstairs reserved for minority-owned businesses at a preferential rate.
“One thing I can say about the city I live in is, we may go through our ups and downs but when it comes to situations like this we have organizations that step up to the plate,” Garriga said about the Hudson-catskill Housing Coalition, the Galvan Foundation and the Columbia County Economic Development Corp.
“They may not be able to do everything but they can do enough to help you sustain.”