A new marketplace is coming to Glass Street, where vendors say they hope to stimulate the local economy and keep more dollars within the community.
The Black- and brown-owned and operated marketplace, referred to by the acronym Boom, is set to open next week, with an open house planned for April 11.
“Glass Street is historic,” Rise Chattanooga Director of Creative Arts Programming Shateria Smith said in an interview. “But also, builders and people are coming in, buying property and turning it into something else, and no longer making it accessible for the community, things we need.
“So, we want to be ahead of that and keep it in the community, for the community, by the community,” Smith said.
It occupies the space that formerly held Allgood’s Used Books and Coffee, which closed in the fall.
Rise, an arts and culture nonprofit based in East Chattanooga, bought the storefront and two next to it late last year. The nonprofit previously operated a marketplace in a Central Avenue storefront.
A coworking space is planned to open next door to Boom, Smith said. She said Rise plans to paint a mural of Betty Patterson, who opened the bookshop in 2019, on the side of the building.
Eventually, the plan is to sell drinks and snacks, like sandwiches and charcuterie, Smith said, which will preserve some of the atmosphere that Allgood’s created there.
“So it’s kind of like a one-stop shop,” Smith said. “You can come and support the community in one space.”
ON THE SHELF
Rise is renting shelf space to about 20 entrepreneurs, starting at $20 a month, and doesn’t take a percentage of sales. For many business owners, it’s the first time their products will be sold in a brick-and-mortar store.
“Twenty years,” Chanda Bowman, owner of C and C Candy, said in an interview. “I started on the side of the road. I graduated to events, festivals, markets, which still doesn’t get me to my end goal of being able to offer it year-round, almost every day.”
IF YOU GO
› What: Boom open house (Boom is an acronym for Black- and brown-owned and operated marketplace.)
› When: 6 to 8 p.m., April 11. After opening, the marketplace is set to be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday.
› Where: 2426 Glass St.
Bowman makes her treats, which include kettle and caramel corn, at the Kitchen Incubator. Having her products sold on Glass Street will make it easier for her to keep a consistent inventory and be paid on a reliable basis, she said.
“Especially being in a neighborhood like the one I grew up in, it makes a difference to be able to offer it to the people who can’t get out to a chain store,” said Bowman, who grew up in north Chattanooga.
When she was a kid, long before Publix moved into the area, Pruett’s closed its grocery store there, forcing people to cross the river for fresh food. To offer old-fashioned treats like hers to people in their own neighborhood means a lot, Bowman said.
Evan Diaz, an illustrator whose pieces portray Black women and women of color, said customers often ask her where they can find her work.
“It just adds credibility to my business,” Diaz said in an interview. “I’m still very new to all of this, but it makes me feel like I’m going in the right direction.”
After moving from Atlanta eight years ago, Diaz said she has been seeking out community in Chattanooga. An event with The Chattery put her in touch with lots of local Black businesspeople, she said, leading her to Boom.
“When you’re surrounded by nothing but things that don’t look familiar to you or don’t resemble you, it can be alienating,” Diaz said. “So to find a community that relates to you, that shares the culture, that shares the language, that shares the food, whatever it may be, it automatically attracts people.”
Making space for entrepreneurs of color sends a message that they’re worthy, Smith said.
“Our doors are open to everyone, but we spotlight the Black and brown community because there’s been times when we couldn’t be, and we were not,” Smith said.
Christopher Shaw has mostly been selling his grooming products online or in barbershops. To sell on Glass Street, in a historically Black community, was a great opportunity, Shaw said.
“The Black dollar doesn’t stay in our community a lot,” Shaw said. “If everyone else is making money off our influence, why can’t we figure out a way to stand together and do the exact same thing?”
For his video and photography business, Final Flash, Shaw also received one of the $300 microgrants Rise awarded to local entrepreneurs, which he said will help cover business costs.
“For me, it’s a momentum builder, because ultimately I want to create a nonprofit side of the business that teaches new photographers, new videographers in the area,” Shaw said.
The grant is meant to help business owners cover the costs that come with starting a business, like creating a logo or website and stocking inventory, Smith said. Rise also plans on holding workshops and events for business development at the space, she said.
“Starting out, bootstrapping is hard,” Smith said. “We talk about entrepreneurs in this community, anything we can do to help, we want to make sure we’re doing it.”
‘FEET ON THE STREET’
There’s often a gap in Chattanooga for people who run their own businesses, Shawanda Mason, cofounder of The Chattery, said. There’s lots of support for people looking to start a business, she said, and plenty of resources for more established ventures, but little help for people in the middle, Mason said.
“Sustaining is what we really need,” she said by phone. “I would love to not repeat things that are happening in the neighborhood, but complement some of the offerings that Rise is doing and other happenings on Glass Street.”
Rise may enlist groups like The Chattery to host workshops and events in the Boom space, Smith said, which Mason said fits into The Chattery’s mission to bring its programming into other parts of Chattanooga.
“Accessibility comes in a lot of different packages, and I think part of our mission of being accessible that we are exploring right now is going to people,” Mason said. “Even in year 11, we’re still meeting people who have never heard of The Chattery … having a satellite location can kind of help bridge the gap.”
Teal Thibaud, a founder of Glass House Collective, said Boom sounds like the realization of that group’s goals.
“That was the dream,” Thibaud said by phone. “The fact that Rise is an arts and culture organization, and Black-led and owned, is very ideal as well.”
The collective worked to improve the Glass Street corridor and change the public perception of the area, Thibaud said, laying groundwork for further community development there.
The area gets a lot of through-traffic, even more since Volkswagen and Amazon opened their Chattanooga facilities, Thibaud said.
“Before, it was like, let’s drive by and lock our doors,” Thibaud said. “And then it was like, actually, let’s drive by, ‘Ooh, maybe we should park and check this out.’ That was the point, to get feet on the street.”
Getting “feet on the street” is proven to make areas safer, Thibaud said. The corridor already had good bones, she said, and the group helped lay 4 blocks of new sidewalk where Glass meets North Chamberlain Street, planted trees and built pocket parks. Private investment usually follows public investment, she said.
“We actually blocked some development that wasn’t gonna be rooted with the community, which was a win,” Thibaud said. “If you don’t own it, you can’t control the outcome.”
The collective’s efforts were community-led, Thibaud said, and the final step of that was to cast a vision, step back and allow it to manifest.
“What we all needed was a platform to get everyone excited about what could happen,” she said. “There’s still so much opportunity. It’s really exciting to hear this, because this was the intent.”
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.
