Downtown Lansing Inc. recruited Sedona Wanderlust Boutique owner Ashleigh Rogers to join its Middle Village “retail accelerator program” in early 2024.
The program places multiple female and minority-owned businesses in a shared space for one year, where DLI works to eventually equip them with the know-how to open stand-alone enterprises.
Rogers and four other businesses set up shop at the Atrium Building, 215 S. Washington Square, last May. She said it didn’t take long for her and some of her peers to notice some issues.
“When we first got there, it reminded me of the Fisher Building in Detroit, where I’m originally from. I thought it could be a good historical monument. Unfortunately, I do not think they had all their ends tied up because we did not have a completed ceiling at the grand opening. That was one of the first things that made us Middle Villagers raise an eyebrow,” she said.
Through August, the space also lacked a Wi-Fi connection, forcing Rogers and others to use personal hotspot connections. She said it took “several months” to fix the roof.
Above all else, Rogers said a lack of customers was paramount. She argued that the Middle Village members believed that the marketing was a shared responsibility between them and DLI. However, they often felt that DLI was not taking those efforts seriously.
“When we asked about it, it was constantly thrown back in our face. They told us that we had the responsibility of doing our own marketing. But we believed that they, as DLI, were already marketing the building before we moved in,” Rogers said.
Downtown Lansing Inc. is a quasi-government organization whose board members are nominated by the mayor and approved by the City Council. Its funding is a mixture of public and private funds, including from the businesses it is charged with promoting and assisting in downtown Lansing and Old Town.
In a call with City Pulse, DLI executive director Cathleen Edgerly acknowledged the problems at the Atrium building, though she also said that DLI waived rental payments for three months to make up for it.
“We shared those same frustrations and worked with the landlord and IT providers to get the space finalized. It wasn’t finished as quickly as we would have hoped, but that is the nature of a new build-out,” Edgerly said.
In August, Rogers, Amara Hoddy of Hoddy Collective and Beeka Monique of CocoBella Boutique opted to leave the program early. Black Rose Designs and Ornamaloo stayed put, and DLI later recruited Bebe’s Boutique to fill one of the vacant spots. Today, Rogers’ business is entirely online.
“All three of us left all at the same time because we were frustrated and felt defeated. After investing so much of our time and money into this, we just decided that we were done,” Rogers said.
For Hoddy, their failures were “not due to unmet goals, but due to unfortunate circumstances that could have been strategically prevented.”
Rogers, Hoddy and others began to speak out after they heard about a website created by Faun Donald and Luke Trusnovec, co-owners of former downtown houseplant shop Neva Lee’s. The site, titled “Downtown Lansing Incompetence,” outlines issues the pair experienced after DLI’s director of downtown community development, Julie Reinhardt, allegedly contacted them about moving their shop from their existing space on Kalamazoo Street to a larger storefront at 109 S. Washington.
After moving in June 2022, the pair encountered plumbing and structural concerns that hindered their progress. They also claim that Reinhardt incentivized them to move through promises of a $25,000 relocation assistance grant, which they say they never received $15,000 of. However, they also gained just under $50,000 through a state reimbursement grant.
Still, they were forced to close in March 2023, they said.
Last week, Edgerly told City Pulse the negotiations between Neva Lee’s and their landlord weren’t DLI’s responsibility. She added that DLI has never done a “relocation grant” and said Neva Lee’s, for its part, did end up receiving far more than $25,000 in total when all was said and done. Since the website launched in late December, DLI’s lawyers have threatened Neva Lee’s with a libel lawsuit.
Former DLI employees like Whitney Jessup have also started weighing in. She was hired for her “dream” job as a marketing communications specialist at DLI in late 2021 and served in that role until she said she was fired in April 2023.
Jessup said she suspects her termination was related to her criticism of DLI’s Kringle Market program at Reutter Park. The park was known as a gathering space for the city’s homeless population, and she believes DLI selected the site to drive them away and help “gentrify” the area.
“Apartments had just gone up right across from the park, and the idea was to start putting in things like the Kringle Market to make the unhoused feel uncomfortable. I don’t know whose idea it originally was, but it was very clear that that is why they chose to activate that park in that way,” Jessup said.
Jessup cited problems with Reinhardt and Edgerly’s leadership, including a tendency to “micromanage” employees and withhold information that “would have been in my wheelhouse to know about.”
“There were also weird little instances where Cathleen was acting like a mean girl, but I kind of wrote it off at first. Over time, the more I was myself at my job, the more it seemed to upset her and get on her nerves,” Jessup said.
She also disagreed with the direction of the Middle Village program. She recalled occasional efforts to eat lunch with the business owners, which she said helped her get to know them better and cater her marketing efforts to suit their needs. She said Edgerly discouraged her from doing so.
“She really had a problem with that because she was not friendly with them,” Jessup said.
Edgerly told City Pulse she couldn’t comment “on HR issues with former employees,” but she reiterated that her office has always followed the law.
Former Middle Village members Elizabeth Kruger and Byron Pepper also contacted City Pulse about their time with DLI. The married couple opened Honey Bun Bakery in 2021 and worked with Reinhardt to open a stand-alone shop at 205 S. Washington in 2022.
To secure funding, they contacted Lake Trust, the primary sponsor of the Middle Village program, which denied their application due to Pepper’s credit history. After informing Reinhardt, they said she spoke to Lake Trust and convinced it to offer the pair a $30,000 loan. According to Kruger and Pepper, Reinhardt told Lake Trust that DLI and Honey Bun Bakery were awaiting a reimbursement grant of up to $50,000, which Reinhardt allegedly said would help the latter repay their balance.
After the pair’s first choice for a space fell through, they accepted Reinhardt’s invitation to join Middle Village in 2023. Later, they discovered that their participation made them ineligible for the aforementioned reimbursement grant. They said Reinhardt advised them to “chalk it up to a mistake and learn from it.”
Pepper, whose name was on the loan, said he had to file for bankruptcy.
“They kind of left us out in the lurch. I want to say it happens, but we’re apparently not the only ones,” Pepper said.
Edgerly contested Reinhardt’s alleged role in securing the loan, noting that DLI doesn’t “get involved in third-party discussions.”
Pepper hopes city leaders will take a closer look at DLI’s practices.
“For me, the 100% best-case scenario is that they pay fines to all of the businesses that they put in these positions that closed. They should no longer operate in the area,” he said.
Responding Tuesday to a request for comment from over a week ago, Mayor Andy Schor defended DLI and criticized Neva Lee’s criticism, which he said “presents one side of the story and does not represent the facts of the situation. It’s disappointing they have decided to respond in this fashion after receiving tens of thousands of grant funding, more than many other small businesses in our community. In fact, they got more than double the grant funds initially sought from DLI — nearly $60,000 total. Many of their complaints also center around the lease they signed, which the City, nor DLI, can legally interfere with or change.”
A former DLI board member and employee, Trevor Benoit, agreed with Pepper on better city oversight.
Benoit noted that DLI was intended to be a principal shopping district, which is primarily responsible for maintaining the sidewalks and organizing trash pickup, rather than promoting development, which is traditionally the responsibility of a downtown development authority.
“City Council should abolish DLI, put in a true DDA and make sure nobody currently involved with DLI has anything to do with it,” Benoit said. He added that DLI’s board of directors “rubber-stamped whatever Cathleen wanted and gave very little pushback” while he was a member from 2021 to 2023.
Another question some have raised about DLI is a possible conflict of interest.
Jen Estill, who founded Redhead Creative Consultancy, is president of DLI’s nine-member board. Her company has also worked with DLI on its recent rebrand and other marketing projects. Efforts to reach Estill for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful. Estill returned a call to City Pulse, but did not reach the reporter and did not call his mobile phone after the reporter left its number.
Benoit noted that Estill recused herself on any votes involving her company while he was on the board, which Edgerly confirmed.
Otherwise Edgerly did not respond to questions about Redhead that City Pulse sent her in two emails over the last two weeks.
Last week, City Pulse submitted a Freedom of Information request to the city for information on any contracts between Redhead and DLI. The city said Tuesday that it needed more research time.
Another former board member, Cara Nadar of Strange Matter Coffee, issued a statement about her experience with DLI last week.
“I resigned my position a few months into COVID after I watched as everyone sat idly by as businesses struggled. DLI and the city just seemed to have the most blasé, relaxed attitude about help and support,” she wrote.
Jessup cited the recent allegations as evidence of a “pattern of behavior” at DLI.
“I think it just shows an attitude they have that they are somehow untouchable,” she said.
Edgerly encouraged City Pulse Tuesday to talk to an owner of the downtown business Sweet Encounter for another perspective. However, the owner did not return a phone call.
Edgerly said she’s sympathetic to the business owners who didn’t see success under their program, but she noted that 93% of businesses that have worked with DLI are still operating.
“Unfortunately, statistics show that over 50% of businesses don’t succeed in the first five years. While we work hard to help local entrepreneurs thrive, the success and longevity of a small business is ultimately the accomplishment of its owners,” she said.
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Toshtensen
Perhaps you should talk to the two stores that remained in Middle Village. There are multiple sides to these stories.
Wednesday, January 15 Report this