They weathered the storm of the 2008 financial crisis and are now closing in on their 10-anniversary in operation, but times are still tough for the fair-trade nonprofit Ten Thousand Villages.
The storefront in downtown Oak Park, 121 N. Marion St., which has experienced slumping sales, higher taxes and the trouble with downtown traffic and parking, prompting its volunteer board to find innovative ways to help keep the doors open at their current location.
Ray Heise, a former village attorney for Oak Park and chairman of the Ten Thousand Villages board, said online sales, flat incomes and the decline of retail stores have all contributed to the slipping revenue at the store, which sells goods from artisans in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
He said the partial closure of Marion Street during the holiday season last year and the recent closure of village-owned parking lots downtown exacerbated the problem.
“We had 1,500 fewer visitors for the holiday season,” he said, although acknowledging that the store has “been sustaining small losses in sales consistently for a couple of years.”
“We were over $20,000 under budget [following the holiday shopping season],” he said.
Susan Roberts, a member of the board of directors, said the situation isn’t exactly dire, but the board had to take several measures to maintain the status quo. She said the board negotiated a one-year lease with the landlord Mike Fox that only slightly increased rent. They also secured a deal with Community Bank of Oak Park-River Forest to provide a bridge loan to the organization, if needed.
Viktor Schrader, economic development manager of the Oak Park Economic Development Corporation, helped facilitate the deal, Roberts said.
“They seem to feel that Ten Thousand Villages is an asset to Oak Park. and they tried to help us,” she said.
Negotiations with the national Ten Thousand Villages organization – there are more than 70 stores in operation in the U.S. and Canada – also helped ease the pressure on the shop concerning payment schedules and other terms.
Additional fundraising – through an online silent auction – and offsite sales at local churches and other venues also helped buoy the shop’s sinking revenue, Roberts said.
Heise said Roberts said that without making some tough decisions and taking quick action, Ten Thousand Villages would have had to consider relocating, possibly outside the downtown area.
“Just because we’re a good cause, that doesn’t relieve us of our responsibility to run a business that can meet its cash-flow obligations,” Heise told Wednesday Journal. “If we have to move to a less desirable location, we’ll do it. We’ll survive, but we are in an ideal location right now.”
Roberts said relocating has not yet been under serious consideration, but it could be if things don’t turn around. She said the nonprofit aims to double its fundraising efforts this year to help fill the gap until sales stabilize. Reduction in personnel is another option, she said, noting that the storefront already is largely staffed by volunteers.
Heise said he hopes the village continues to be responsive to downtown merchants who are feeling the pain of traffic congestion and lack of parking as a result of large mixed-use development projects in the works along Lake Street.
The village recently took corrective action to attract more shoppers, particularly by making parking cheaper in downtown garages, installing more short-term parking meters and putting tighter time limits on surface parking lots. The goal is to encourage shoppers to stay longer and discourage long-term parking for those who commute into the city.
Heise also said he hopes the village ultimately gives a better timeline for when the Oak Park Station development, bounded by North Boulevard, Harlem Avenue and Lake Street, will be completed and if possible to build the parking structure associated with the project first.
“I’d like to get some assurance with regard to the construction schedule and when they anticipate the garage being completed,” Heise said. “There are a lot of people involved in this.”
CONTACT: tim@oakpark.com