Retail Infusion: Pop-Up!
By Special Contributor to Union Square Main Streets, Alexandra Reisman
Similar to the way parklets are a small-scale, urbanist intervention for open space, pop-up retail brings new commercial activity to unused or underutilized spaces. Pop-up stores can take many forms but the term is most commonly applied to a shop which fills in an empty storefront for a few months or so. Like parklets, pop-ups can increase foot traffic and make an area more visually pleasing.
After Poor Little Rich Girl moved out, the businesses of Fringe Union temporarily opened a store called Process at 374 Somerville Ave.
The pop-up arrangement can be useful for a few reasons. To begin, it lowers the barriers to entry for a range of would-be business owners, often young people, immigrants, and artists. You can see why this is worth talking about in Somerville! Entrepreneurs without a lot of capital can test out their business concepts, build customer bases, and learn the specifics of an area’s consumer demand. Or artists or other vendors who may not have a lot of inventory can afford to display and directly sell their wares. Essentially, a pop-up store is a low-risk trial run for its owners.
For me, this calls to mind the story of my great-grandparents who emigrated from Germany in 1929 and later opened Stroop’s Bicycle Shop in Detroit. They didn’t have a bicycle to sell, so instead they arranged bicycle parts artfully in the store window and would build bikes to order for customers as they acquired the parts. The struggles of new businesses haven’t changed.
Second, pop-up stores act as tools for visioning. Who knew that that sorry-looking space on the corner could be such a charming jewelry shop, or a clothing store, juice bar, art gallery, hobby shop, or reading room? While pop-up interventions are limited in their ability to physically transform a space, they generate new ideas for and excitement about places that might otherwise be ignored. Plus, as a shop owner from Oakland’s innovative pop-up-en-masse initiative POPUPHOOD argues, operating on a shoestring budget encourages businesses to be more “creative and edgy.”
Third, pop-up stores boost retail where it’s needed. Introducing retail where it doesn’t already have an established presence can be difficult, and shops benefit from co-locating with other shops, especially similar ones. Pop-up stores can be a quick way to begin building a retail presence and/or diversifying a business district, helping it appeal to a wider base and ideally attracting new regulars. What’s especially nice about people who are shopping is that they tend to be leisurely and peaceful, eating and drinking at off-peak hours and usually looking to spend a few dollars.
The Union Square Farmers Market is an example of an ongoing pop-up retail intervention.
Union Square is already quite familiar with one form of pop-up: temporary markets, like the farmers’ market or ArtsUnion specialty markets. Like pop-up stores, these act as temporary retail infusions, lighting up the neighborhood for a short time with new activity, and giving local vendors a new forum to sell their products. And though they are temporary, pop-up stores and markets ideally help to fortify a business district by increasing its visibility, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, and starting dialogues about the community’s long-term goals for the area. In this way, pop-ups are not merely “fodder for the style section,” but a means for community economic development.
Do you see pop-up retail as a practical concept for Union Square? What kinds of shops would you like to see in Union Square? Though it is not too burdened by vacancies, it does have a few unused and underutilized spaces where the pop-up concept could take hold. Which spaces would you want to transform?
Our Public Space, Ourselves
The public space of Union Square isn’t just the plaza. It’s our sidewalks and streets and pocket parks. It’s as majestic as the Prospect Hill monument and as humble as our central parking lot.
We’re working to animate these spaces with programming, including efforts we lead like the weekly farmers market, projects we partner directly on like the ArtsUnion events, and services we wish to enable like sidewalk dining.
The design of our common space is important too, as it can able encourage connections and creates a vibrant civic society. We’re part of the planning on the neighborhood, city and state levels and working to make changes that last from a season to a century.
As we come together around this bowtie of streets and patchwork of buildings old and new, we’re both defining the neighborhood and being defined by it, creators and the creation. We’re joining with our past and future, appreciating the the generations who lived here before us and forging our own legacy in Union Square.
Among the key placemaking efforts currently underway in a design context are:
- Somerville Arts Council’s ArtsUnion’s installation projects
- Roadway Redesign
- Greenline Station Planning (see the Greenline section for this big topic)
- Planter Sponsorships & Clean Up Efforts
- Banner Program
Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization Livability Program
Banner photo by Rana Banerjee.
