Chinatown is establishing its first-ever business hub to support and empower local small businesses.
The Small Business Innovation Hub will be officially opening next week and managed by Welcome to Chinatown, a nonprofit founded in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to support Chinatown entrepreneurs. The community and event space is catered for entrepreneurs to gather, learn, and grow alongside each other while accelerating existing Chinatown businesses and incubating new ones.
Located on 115 Bowery, the hub will be operating on pilot mode starting next Tuesday, Aug. 22 and open Tuesdays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The hub is tentatively closing later this year in November to continue its construction and furniture, audio, and visual design. The hub would potentially reopen next summer, depending on whether Welcome to Chinatown is able to secure its fundraising goal of roughly $785,000.
Victoria Lee, co-founder of Welcome to Chinatown, told amNewYork Metro that this is the organization’s first attempt at building a business hub in Chinatown since its formation three years ago.
“We were realizing there was really a need to collaborate and have a space where business owners could look at their business models and strategy,” Lee said. “Our mission is to be able to have this physical place to tackle systemic problems.”
Lee, a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in Brooklyn, pointed to historical events and disasters that have greatly impacted Chinatown, including the COVID-19 pandemic, underfunding and disenfranchisement, 9/11, and Hurricane Sandy. The current Chinatown community, flush with Vietnamese and Malaysian businesses as well as non-Asian businesses,
“Having these ethnic enclaves are truly important because they’re built on the backbone of immigrants that have come here and have made a place home,” Lee said. “Chinatown is the embodiment of the American dream.”
Welcome to Chinatown learned about the needs of the neighborhood after the group surveyed 152 businesses and released a Chinatown impact study last August. There are currently 1,800 storefronts in Chinatown, of which almost 400 are sitting vacant.
Between 2010 to 2020, 10% of the Asian population in Chinatown declined, which Lee called “concerning.” She also pointed to Chinatown’s aging population and how many of the elderly continue living in poverty.
“Chinatown is also becoming more transient,” Lee said. “We’re starting to see residents getting pushed out because of affordability. We’re losing the Asian population in Chinatown.”
Lee said Chinatown’s greatest strengths are its “resilience, grit, and vibrancy” which she attributes to the small businesses and residents.
The organization hopes to build bridges between older generations of Chinatown business owners with younger generations, such as Gen Z and millennial, who make up most of Welcome to Chinatown’s volunteer base. There will be Welcome to Chinatown staff at the hub who will be able to communicate to businesses in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. The organization hopes to offer more multilingual services in the long run.
“We have a generation of business owners that will retire in the near future. What happens to these businesses?”
The group plans to hold open office hours, one-on-one consolations, panel talks and discussions, and events to support both older and newer businesses, and help businesses develop their goods and services. One upcoming panel discussion will be about how businesses can build their soft skills: branding, pitching to investors and partners, and fostering media relationships.
“We’re currently working with a handful of small business owners to help them on marketing and digitalization efforts,” Lee said. “We do see the power in co-working to be able to build and foster a lot of relationships.”
To celebrate its opening and all the supporters who have helped bring the hub off the ground, Welcome to Chinatown will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday alongside community members and elected officials, including Assembly Member Grace Lee, State Senator Brian Kavanagh, and Council Member Christopher Marte.
The hub will allow Welcome to Chinatown to expand its current programming including its meal donation program and a longevity grant program to provide financial support for at-risk businesses.
“The long-term vision of the hub is to act as a resource to the community and become this thought center for how entrepreneurship can be fostered, developed, and sustained in the community,” Lee said.”This is our organization’s love letter to Chinatown.”
