Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership Working to Help Local Businesses Affected by Pandemic

The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll on local businesses and the community, leaving many places around Chapel Hill searching for answers.

Matt Gladdek, the executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, spoke with 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck about the challenges these local businesses are facing. His organization has a wide variety of services and programs all geared toward helping local business and property owners—serving as a liaison between them, the town, UNC and the community.

Never before has Gladdek dealt with an issue as serious as this pandemic, which has brought upon a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of downtown Chapel Hill.

“I think, for downtown Chapel Hill, it’s an especially interesting situation and difficult situation because we are so heavily reliant on UNC,” Gladdek said. “Businesses take a big dip during spring break anyway, and then they have spring break extended indefinitely.”

Without students on campus to help the local economy prosper—not to mention most of the town staying in their homes to avoid the spread of the virus—many local businesses are worried about how they will be able to afford rent.

Sales are down just about anywhere you look in town, while profit margins for retail stores and restaurants are already extremely thin as it is.

Gladdek said the Downtown Partnership has begun having conversations with local landlords about staying patient through this crisis, as the Small Business Administration works to come up with a low-interest loan plan to help these businesses stay afloat.

“The time it takes for that money to get into businesses’ hands is the difference between staying in business and going bankrupt,” Gladdek said. “If landowners and landlords can be patient, we have a better chance of saving more of our businesses.”

Some examples of changes that have already been implemented include the town of Chapel Hill waiving parking meter fees for people picking up take-out orders from restaurants. Many local businesses like Johnny T-Shirt and the Shrunken Head Boutique have also shifted to mail order service only, with some offering free or discounted shipping prices.

Gladdek also stressed the importance of buying gift cards as a way to help, with that money serving as gap financing to get businesses through this tough stretch.

Supporting GoFundMe pages for service workers, ordering delivery from local businesses instead of Amazon and buying produce from local farms are among the other solutions Gladdek suggested could help during this time.

With all that said, even he knows that there is no timeline on how long this situation will last or how effective any solutions will be over the long term—stating that any help from the federal and state governments would be invaluable.

“This is unprecedented,” Gladdek said. “I don’t think we know. I don’t want to be pessimistic so much as I want to be incredibly realistic about what is at stake, and what we have to do to move forward to save our community members that own these local businesses and employ our friends.”

Photo via Town of Chapel Hill.

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Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership Working to Help Local Businesses Affected by Pandemic

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