What is the business roadblock?

[Roy Pitchford]

I've seen the empty store-fronts and buildings for sale and in recent days, I've read a few discussions here where people are talking about businesses and city revenue and the like.
There's a lot of energy out there about the Detroit Theater, but that passion and energy could be better used by directing it towards offering a solution, rather than complaining about a McDonalds.

There are some people, though, that sound like they have ideas, but are unable to act on them. I know I've personally had 3 different business ideas for Lakewood over the last few months and only 1 so far stands much chance of happening.
(I've mentioned these before, so bear with me.)
1. An indoor paintball or lasertag facility. The nearest paintball is a good 45 minutes drive south. The nearest lasertag is about 30 minutes. What got in the way of me and my business partners was cost. To do something of quality like we wanted would have cost more than we could afford, particularly because of the square footage necessary.

2. An arcade. As with the facility above, this would cater more towards the 15 and under age group. There's a lot of them and right now, they could use someplace to go. The issue we encountered here is a Lakewood Ordinance (Chapter 719) which makes arcades (as a stand-alone establishment) virtually impossible.

3. Business/Conference Center. Still needs some fine tuning, but we are optimistic about this idea.

What other business ideas have people here had that they couldn't go through with?
What were the roadblocks?
Can the city or (even better) the people of the city help?

[Michael Loje]

Roy, one thing to remember is the time, the 1920's, that these storefronts were built. Probably more than half were occupied by butcher shops, Chinese laundries, small grocery stores, and doctors offices. Doctors later went in to medical buildings, and all the rest of those businesses disappeared.
The retail vacancy problem now is not unique to Lakewood. Rocky River, which has much less storefront retail space than we do, has similar problems. They have things like a driving school in a first floor retail location, which would have been unheard of ten years ago.
Whenever a bad restaurant or bad pizza shop closes up, we view it as a reflection of the state of retail in Lakewood, as opposed to the ill-preparedness or bad concepts of the business owner.
Speaking for myself here, we need more GOOD ethnic restaurants. GOOD Thai, Cambodian, Ethiopian, Japanese, Moroccan, Swedish, or Russian, for example, would draw people from far beyond the borders of Lakewood. A mediocre version of any of these would have far less appeal.
We HAD a very good Chinese place here a few years ago, Wu's, at Madison and Warren. But the food could not make up for the sore lack of atmosphere and self-promotion.
Retail stores, also, have to have appeal beyond Lakewood. Home decor, music, and who-knows-what can do well as long as people need it and they know you are there.
So lets think of some ideas. Something with broad appeal. Lakewood is the place to do it.

[Meg Ostrowski]

Has anyone been participating in the StartUp Lakewood Program? It looks like a great resource for those looking to start a business here.

http://onelakewood.com/Development/Star ... wood.aspxd

[Meg Ostrowski]

...let me try that link again.

http://onelakewood.com/Development/StartupLakewood.aspx