Construction, WooSox & regulation are killing Canal District dreams
More Information
It’s a scary time to be a business owner. For the first time in seven years, I am afraid for my future and my business. Besides the construction in Worcester’s Canal District, coming obstacles make me wonder if The Queen’s Cups, or our neighbors, will survive the next five years.
I am excited for the City of Worcester and its $101-million Polar Park baseball stadium project anticipated to open on 2021. Being directly on Water Street, I have not dealt with the construction woes my friends on Green Street have, and I cannot help but feel for them. With all of the construction, they are feeling the impact of less foot traffic, the complaints from customers who drove around for 20 minutes looking for a parking spot, and the lack of income. With less people in our neighborhood, it impacts every business. Just a couple weeks ago, my staff frantically called me on a Friday morning after a construction company hit our gas line, resulting in the loss of gas and hot water. How can you run a bakery without gas or hot water? You can’t. They fixed it within an hour, but if you bake at home, you know how much an hour can put you back.
Besides construction, I can already foresee the greed created by the Pawtucket Red Sox’s planned arrival in our area. Amy Lynn Chase has spent almost a decade building her businesses and our Canal District community – creating friendships and bonds among business owners – and with the impending park headed our way, everyone wants in now. Most people believe the baseball games will make us all millionaires.
We can hope that will be the case, but it’s doubtful. All of our rents are going to skyrocket to market pricing. Landlords will be able to fill our spaces within a day of us leaving. There won’t be any parking. We are going to see businesses here for years be forced to leave because they are told they don’t fit the mold. We may not say it, but it is a scary thought not knowing what to expect.
On top of the construction in our area, minimum wage for all businesses will increase to $15 an hour by 2021. A typical hourly rate for a cake decorator is also $15. So, when I have to pay high school kids that hourly rate, my cake decorators will expect a pay increase, and I will be forced to raise our prices. Who is going to buy an $8 cupcake? This is going to be a problem for small businesses. We already pay a lot in payroll taxes. This increase could result in tens of thousands per year to businesses, one we may not be able to afford.
By 2021, Massachusetts will have paid family and medical leave, where employees will pay a percentage into a trust fund. Employers who have 25 or more employees also will pay a percentage. It’s just something else employers have to worry about. For employees, some just cannot afford to lose a percentage of their pay. Some of my employees can’t, and I am not naïve to think The Queen’s Cups is an anomaly.
As a small business owner, I prided myself on being able to offer health insurance to full-time employees for the first time this year. I also had my first employee who was pregnant, and I offered her paid maternity leave. These will no longer be a perk to work for me, since they will be instituted by Massachusetts in a few years. What will I have to offer employees as an incentive to work at The Queen’s Cups? For the first time in my career, I am dumbfounded.
I have always been gung-ho on owning a business, following your passion and just blindly going for things because life always seems to work out. But after spending the last nine months working on a project and ultimately having to back out on a dream, solely because of the financial burden it could place on my family’s wellbeing with all of the anticipated changes coming our way, I feel pretty much defeated and in a rut. This is a scary time to be a business owner. My fear is Massachusetts will see so many of us close our doors because we cannot make our American Dream work any longer.
Renee Diaz is the owner of The Queen’s Cups bakery, which generated more than $1 million in revenue last year.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
It's too bad that small entrepreneurs cannot possibly compete with the quasi-public/private entities like the WBDC and The Chamber of Commerce or public ones such as the Comm. of MA and the city of Worcester. They all have the connections and the inside scoop on where to get the money to pursue and fulfill their dreams without risking one penny of their own capital while the little guys who put their heart , soul and capital into their dream gets shoved aside in favor of the big glamorous, glitzy projects. This whole ballpark scam is going to work for a few years but in the long run will be a failure once public tastes change in favor of other pastimes like soccer which is the preferred sport of almost all of the 3rd world populations that are slowly but surely taking over this country.
Having had my own business with 9 employees in West Roxbury many years ago, I often thought about re-entering the race and give it a second shot, now that I have been living in Worcester and the City is growing rapidly. I spent an entire last year researching a new project, location and resources. I must say I agree with the author the struggles and challenge are real.
After painstakingly combed through my business plan and with a heavy heart I put a halt to it. The changes in minimum wage, taxes, insurance, and rent ect. had kept me up many nights once before. And this time, unless it is absolutely making sense I won’t go into it again with a definite cleared road map hence I’m keeping my corporate job for the time being. Good luck to all Small Businesses who are going through this challenging phase. I know your pain.
4 Comments