Bloomington-Normal Nurtures Small Businesses
business, economic development, entrepreneurship,
When it comes to McLean County’s economic climate, agricultural and corporate operations first spring to mind. But while those industries are indeed prosperous here, Twin Cities businesses flourish far beyond cornfields and cubicles.
For more than three decades, the small companies Fox & Hounds and The Garlic Press have kept the doors open, and that’s certainly a measure of business acumen and leadership skill. Yet the owners of both enterprises say they share the credit for their success with something else – the entrepreneurial environment in Bloomington-Normal.
“The business climate in Bloomington-Normal combined has always been really, really good, and I think it’s because of such a healthy balance of white collar and blue collar. Bloomington-Normal has been smart in their economic development over the years, not to eliminate anything, but not to put all their eggs in one basket,” says Vicki Tilton, owner of Fox & Hounds, a hair studio and day spa in a Downtown Bloomington building that’s more than a century old.
Tilton worked at the business for years before becoming its owner. In the early 1990s, she and her husband bought, renovated and moved into the historic building, where they lease residential and retail space.
When they purchased the building, Tilton says some acquaintances were skeptical that government would be flexible enough to permit the renovations necessary. “We found that to be so untrue. We have found the city of Bloomington to be so cooperative,” she says. “Have they made us do something that we didn’t want to do? Yeah, but nothing, nothing, that was outrageous or unreasonable.”
Offering complete hair services, body wraps, manicures and pedicures, facials, a variety of massages and waxing, Fox & Hounds averages 1,700 to 2,000 customers monthly, Tilton estimates, and celebrated its 39th year in business in July 2009.
The Garlic Press, a specialty cookware store, opened in Uptown Normal in 1974, and Dotti Bushnell bought the business two years later. She’s owned it ever since, throughout expansions that added on-site cooking classes and a popular restaurant, The Garlic Press Market Café & Bakery.
A quarterly newsletter, which Bushnell describes as “simple and personal,” helps keep the business in regular contact with its customers, announcing new items, sales and class schedules. The market café features an evolving menu incorporating seasonal, local and organic ingredients whenever possible, with a selection of teas, espresso drinks and made-from-scratch baked goods in addition to deli-style sandwiches, soups and other lunch fare. The store even sells locally made jewelry, bath items and toiletries, out-of-the-ordinary toys and clothes, including the FLAX linen clothing line.
“The area, not just Normal, has gotten more cosmopolitan over the years I’ve been in business,” Bushnell says. “I understood the good Midwestern mind, but I also had traveled and lived in other places enough to understand how to go out and find newer things and spread our wings a bit. That combination was good.”
The Garlic Press and Bushnell have weathered up and down economies, as well as construction projects through the years to beautify Uptown Normal and improve traffic flow. Bushnell says those investments demonstrate local government and community support for the small businesses making a go of it in the area.
“This latest redevelopment is a very bold move,” she says of current infrastructure construction that should wrap up by the 2009 holiday shopping season. “It’s a great plan.”
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
