When customers venture into her apparel shop to admire her “Afro-futuristic” designs, Abisola “Yele” Oladeinde always tells them to “please tell a friend, tell a friend to come.”

She and other temporary tenants at downtown Baltimore’s Harborplace are working to drum up business by word of mouth, over social media and through events on the Inner Harbor waterfront.

It’s not easy, as most of the small, minority-owned shops are launching or testing concepts, and they sell from 44-year-old retail pavilions dotted with vacancies and set to be torn down.

“Traffic hasn’t been great compared to what we expected,” said Oladeinde, founder and chief fashion officer of Yele’s Stitches. “So far we haven’t been getting much foot traffic, especially from Baltimore residents. They don’t know about it.”

Slow foot traffic and struggles over parking

A handful of small merchants in temporary tenancy programs are part of an experiment to infuse activity into the waterfront attraction ahead of a massive redevelopment while also positioning small, Black-owned businesses for growth.

Since opening about six months ago, and joining remaining anchors The Cheesecake Factory and It’Sugar, tenants say they have struggled with slow foot traffic and customers’ reluctance to pay for parking.

One, Crust by Mack, a bakery that moved in first this year, shuttered its retail side this month to pivot to a more profitable catering model. Still, most say they have no plans to leave and hope to compete for a permanent home at the site.

“This is our proof of concept,” said Michael Saunders, a co-founder of Matriarch Coffee. “The risk is low. The reward is high. I’ve seen Harborplace in its glory and I’ve seen its decline, and I’m excited about being a part of what’s happening now. This was the opportunity that we needed to grow into something larger.”

Developer MCB Real Estate, which struck a deal to acquire the mostly vacant pavilions out of receivership in April 2022, plans an ambitious “reimagining” of the waterfront that’s been at the center of a contentious public debate over balancing a need for revitalization with public waterfront access.

The plan cleared a hurdle earlier this month when Baltimore voters approved a charter amendment to allow the $900 million effort. Designs call for four tall buildings with apartments, retail, parking spots and green spaces.

Opponents, including many longtime city residents, have decried plans to build apartment towers on waterfront reserved for public use. Developer David Tufaro, among those who object to plans for 900 apartments, said he has concerns as well about the current owner’s commitment to the new retail at the harbor. Under a series of previous owners, the pavilions became neglected and for years lost retail tenants and patronage.

Harborplace’s original developer, Columbia-based retail owner The Rouse Co., “went in it with a vengeance, finding their tenants and nurturing them,” Tufaro said.

He worries that MCB’s proposal for high-rise apartments means that “most of the revenue will come from residences, not from the retail, so they’re not going to have the dedication to the success of the retail that somebody whose only thing is retail would have.”

A supportive partner lends a hand

P. David Bramble, an MCB managing partner, did not respond to requests for comment. But Bramble has consistently maintained that his firm’s vision will incorporate community members’ priorities for waterfront access and space for small, local businesses.

Tenants brought in by MCB and the Downtown Partnership’s Boost program said they feel supported by the developer.

At Matriarch Coffee, where customers meet over lattes and work on laptops to water views and jazz in the background, Saunders said he is learning to read his market and the ebb and flow of traffic driven by tourists, conventions and downtown events. He described sales as strong since his April opening.

Before that, Matriarch, which imports coffee beans from Rwanda and operates a roastery in Arbutus, was selling online, at farmers markets and in a few local retailers. Saunders and his business partners were approached by MCB representatives looking for a coffee shop.

Saunders was impressed MCB sought out a local business rather than a national chain. He said both the co-founders and MCB made an investment allowing them to open their first shop.

“They made it affordable for us to be here and serve a need for the customer base walking around downtown,” Saunders said.

Idris Coleman, owner of Motion Athletics, said he has been learning to adjust to business that tends to be seasonal. He described the summer months as “very strong at the harbor because the harbor is a bit seasonal. Around in October and November it starts to fall off.”

Still sales have met his expectations, he said.

“My expectations weren’t high given that we were new down there, and the harbor is in a lot of change,” Coleman said. “It’s not as frequented as the way it used to be. It’s not full of shops and restaurants like it used to be.”

He’s hoping for a boost during the holiday shopping season, when visitors are drawn to the harbor by a temporary ice skating rink and the return later this month of the German Christmas Village in Baltimore. The two-year lease will allow him to see whether the business is capable of sustained growth, he said.

‘Growing pains’ begin to turn a corner

Coleman’s business was one of seven that moved in last summer with help from Downtown Partnership’s incubator program, which offers two-year license agreements and aims to accelerate the growth of local minority entrepreneurs by exposing them to new customers. BOOST participants pay either $10 per square foot or 10% of gross revenues, whichever is greater.

Others, besides Yele’s Stitches, include Pandora’s Box, Cuples Tea House, Milton’s Daughters, Storybook Maze and MoreLife Organic Juice. The BOOST tenants joined others already brought in by MCB, including Matriarch, Crust by Mack, Good Food, Saturday Morning Café, Angelis Pizza, RICH Juice Bar, Made In Baltimore and Collegiate Luxe.

BOOST typically helps tenants find vacant storefronts scattered throughout downtown. The program, in partnership with MCB, placed the Harborplace group together so they could learn from and help each other, said Shelonda Stokes, president of Downtown Partnership.

“We’re finding value in the co-location and see its benefit,” she said. “As we’ve added more businesses, people feel confident they can go there and get something that they’re excited about, the more that confidence grows, the better that will be.”

Some tenants have found the model a good fit, while others are still assessing and figuring out how to best operate, Stokes said.

“The brick and mortar model is not going to be the right model for every business,” she said. “We’re going through those growing pains.”

The program offers no guarantees of a permanent lease, but “the hope across the board is that for businesses that are working and want to be in that space, there’s an opportunity for them to do so,” she said.

For Monesha Phillips, who also runs a Pandora’s Box gift shop in Federal Hill, her Harborplace shop experiment is yielding results.

“What we sell works here,” Phillips said. “And I can see the potential at Harborplace, once there’s a remodel and they move forward. The energy is definitely there.”

She’s found that customers, many of them visitors, often have positive views of the city rather than negative perceptions.

“We know how [Harborplace] has been, and we’ve seen it from the beginning years ago,” Phillips said. “People who have not had that previous experience but still have a positive outlook that makes me know there’s potential.”

Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.