Businesses, town working to sell success in Rocky Mount

Businesses, town working to sell success in Rocky Mount
The economic slump has taken its toll in Rocky Mount, but many businesses are turning around, and town officials are working hard to encourage new growth.

By Janelle Rucker | janelle.rucker@roanoke.com | 981-3159

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/253637

Photos by SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

Dawn and Bob Rapecis shop at Antiques & Collectables of the Crooked Road in Rocky Mount.

J&J Fashions owner Shelia Copenhaver (center) assists Barbara Schilling (left) and her mother, Bonnie Corley, with shopping at the store in Rocky Mount. Copenhaver said business has been better in the past three months than in the past year.

Rocky Mount has seen businesses close in the last year of economic trouble, but there are new stores opening, too.
ROCKY MOUNT — Customers flowed in and out of J&J Fashions downtown last week.

Owner Sheila Copenhaver took over the family business about a year an a half ago, just as the economy started to sour.

Though it’s been hard, Copenhaver said by focusing on customer service, unique merchandise and numerous sales and promotions, she hasn’t had to lay off any employees or cut their work hours. The town government, too, is trying to prop businesses up with programs such as a recent coupon initiative.

“The last three months are way ahead of last year,” Copenhaver said.

While Copenhaver’s business continues to survive, others in town continue to struggle.

Restaurants such as Old Virginia Barbecue and Red Clay went out of business in a town that’s long served as Franklin County’s hub — a town that has been hit hard in the past with the downsizing of the manufacturing industry.

Local sales tax figures in Rocky Mount have been declining since fiscal year 2006. In the fiscal year that ended in June, the town collected only $153,829 — down almost $10,000 from the previous year.

“It’s tough in Rocky Mount right now,” said Bob Mills of Angle Hardware. When a lot of the manufacturers closed in Rocky Mount, Mills said he lost his larger accounts.

“Like so many communities are seeing, our businesses are doing what they can to stay in business,” said Assistant Town Manager Matt Hankins, who also is in charge of economic development in the town. “Most are making the best of the national and local economic situations — offering new or different services, finding new clients, adding new lines. To their credit, many of them are succeeding and surviving.”

Hankins considers the town’s shopping centers “healthy,” with occupancy rates at or above pre-recession levels. An exception is Schewel’s Plaza on Virginia 40, where a Maxway chain store closed late last year, Hankins said. The town and real estate agents for the shopping center are working to recruit a “small discount chain grocery store, which would serve a real need on the west end of town,” he said.

But potential businesses are eyeing Rocky Mount’s commercial real estate.

“We’ve had more business and development interest in Rocky Mount than I would have expected during a lingering recession,” Hankins said.

While Hankins said he can’t comment on specific businesses or locations, he said that during the past six months businesses have been looking at the Uptown area off Rocky Mount’s downtown, as well as North Main Street, the industrial park and Virginia 40.

“I showed a prospective business three locations in town last week and have a tentative appointment with a national retailer interested in opening a location here,” he said in late June.

Others want more businesses, especially in the downtown area.

“Business brings business,” said Harold Ingram of Haywood Jewelry, who said business has been fair, but not as good as a year or two ago.

Mills agrees.

He said he’d like to see some compatible businesses fill empty spaces along Franklin Street.

Many of Copenhaver’s customers say they’d like to see more restaurants, particularly ones that are open on Sundays, she said.

The town and private developers have contacted and will continue to attempt to recruit some national “family-type” restaurants that could locate near U.S. 220, Hankins said.

“If we land another restaurant, great,” Hankins said. “If not, I think we have great dining experiences already.”

There are some new businesses in town.

The Grainery, an art studio and galleries, and a sewing and knitting supply store called The Crooked Stitch are opening up, Hankins said. And El Rodeo moved into the former Olde Virginia Barbecue building on North Main Street.

“Their business, which was doing great before, has really taken off,” Hankins said.

Aside from new businesses, more jobs are expected soon.

Empire Foods will open a new manufacturing center, and a new Walgreens drug store is under construction, Hankins said.

Until the economy improves, town officials have stepped up to assist struggling businesses.

In November, guided by the local Community Partnership for Revitalization group, about 50 businesses signed up to participate in the “5 on Us” coupon program. Coupons offering $5 off a $20 purchase were distributed in the town for use from November through May. Town officials set aside $35,000 to reimburse participating businesses for each $5 coupon redeemed at their establishment, in an effort to drive up sales and encourage consumers to shop locally.

Copenhaver said the coupon was a nice incentive, but she didn’t notice too many new customers.

If anything, it encouraged people to spend a little more money than they might have, Mills said.

Six thousand coupons were distributed and, according to monthly finance reports, more than $10,000 worth of coupons were redeemed.