You Can Always Go Downtown

Last updated Saturday, July 22, 2006 10:24 PM CDT in Business

By Anita French
The Morning News

Maybe not everything, but a few downtown merchants in Rogers, Fayetteville, Springdale and Bentonville say they wouldn't want to be anyplace else.

Here's their take:

-- "This new stuff has no soul, no character. You could be anywhere there. The character of any town is its downtown," said Emery Davis III, owner of the Iron Horse.

-- "I like the atmosphere, the older buildings, the revitalization going on," said David Adams, owner of Adams Jewelry on the Fayetteville square.

-- Max Ryan, owner of Ryan's Clothing in downtown Springdale, said downtowns "provide an alternative to our generic world. There's opportunities for people to do things not in the norm."

-- "It's the heart of the business district," said David Scoggins, owner of Roy's Office Solutions in downtown Bentonville. "It's working with the same neighbors for years."

For years. That's something right there. Together, these merchants have been in business for around 130 years, surviving the onslaught of Wal-Mart, shopping malls and chains.

Let them tell you how:

Emery Davis

Davis said his parents, who own their own business and several other pieces of property in Rogers, helped him open Iron Horse eight years ago. Since then, sales have continued to improve at his coffee shop, he said, something Davis attributes to offering a unique atmosphere.

"You have to create a place where (people) want to go," he said.

His smartest move? Keeping it simple, meaning that Davis doesn't feel his cafe has to offer everything, he said. Iron Horse specializes in unique coffees, and Davis added sandwiches only because Rogers wasn't ready for cappuccinos and lattes eight years ago, he said.

The sandwiches carried him over until "the coffee (craze) kicked in," Davis said.

For those thinking about opening their own business, he offers the following advice: Pick a good location, make sure there is a market for your product and "be prepared to work hard and be here a lot."

His dumbest move? Davis admits sometimes being too lenient with former employees and says you have to have reliable ones who will keep an eye on business when the owner's back is turned. If they don't, "You're dealing with someone messing with your baby," Davis said.

David Adams

Adams has been in the jewelry business since 1992 and on the Fayetteville square for four years. If someone asked him how to start a business like his, "I would first tell them to get an understanding of where you want the business to go. In the jewelry business, you can design and sell or repair or buy directly and resell. You can do it all, but it's tricky. Really define what your business is," he said.

His biggest mistake was building inventory too quickly until it became a tax burden, Adams said. His smartest move was being downtown, he said.

"It's the heart of the community. Ideas start from downtown. A lot of people venture downtown to see how Fayetteville started," Adams said.

Max Ryan

Adams Jewelry and Iron Horse are fledglings when it comes to Ryan's Clothing. Max Ryan's father opened the store on Emma Street in Springdale 64 years ago. It has remained in the same location, although the store has expanded to 15,000 square feet over the years.

In fact, the continuing expansion was his smartest move -- that and not carrying needless inventory and concentrating on customer service, Ryan said.

"We're an every-day low price store," he said. "We've been operating on low margins for years."

His biggest mistake? "Can't think of one," Ryan said. And don't ask him for how-to-get-started-in-business advice.

"Our business is great, and I don't want to be negative, but Northwest Arkansas is overly retailed. I'd probably tell them to put their money into the bank," Ryan said, with a laugh.

David Scoggins

Like Max Ryan, David Scoggins inherited his father's office supply business, now called Roy's Office Solutions, around 20 years ago. It has been in downtown Bentonville since 1948. David Scoggins sold off half of his business last year, carrying only office supplies and furniture now, but said he still tries to offer the kind of service his customers can't find at chains or discount stores.

"We've learned through the years to carry products mass merchants don't carry. They don't care about supporting the customer," Scoggins said. The smartest move he made was "picking good (merchandise) lines and supporting them," he said.

His advice to budding entrepreneurs:

"You gotta have an itch to be able to compete with mass merchants and the Internet. You have to be totally different. We've succeeded because of our service and our people knowing the products," Scoggins said.

His biggest mistake? "There've been too many" to pick one, he said.

'SOCIAL COMPONENT'

Scoggins thinks a bigger mistake has been made where downtowns like his have been left to go to ruin. It's understandable why he and the other merchants feel downtowns are important. But why should the average resident care?

"Research shows that a healthy and vibrant downtown boosts the economic health and quality of life in a community. Specifically, it creates jobs, incubates small businesses, reduces sprawl, protects property values, and increases the community's options for goods and services. A healthy downtown is a symbol of community pride and history," said the Pew Partnership for Civic Change at the University of Richmond in Virginia, in a recent study.

Also, says Robert Dorgan, director of The Institute for Small Town Studies in Fairfield, Iowa, downtowns provide an "incredible social component."

"I think there's several reasons (why downtowns are important)," he said. "One is the close proximity of people and resources so we're not so reliant on automobiles and not so distant from each other. Another is the amount of infrastructure already in place ... sprawl is expensive."

His organization has worked with several Main Street communities, Dorgan said, and continues to see examples of those that have thrived despite highway development.

"Some towns have become much more tourist-centric. They are looking at their assets and marketing them. They're reminding people of what a great place (downtown) is," he said.

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