Small businesses band together at Daydream Shop & Maker Space

By FOX 13 News Staff
Updated  October 2, 2024 4:59pm EDT
FOX 13 News
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Small businesses band together at Daydream Shop & Maker Space

FOX 13 photojournalist Barry Wong takes us to Daydream Shop & Maker Space.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - To battle rising rents, 11 small businesses banded together to share the burden of bills. Each vendor has a sales space at Daydream Shop & Maker Space. 

"The prices in St. Pete are just too high for a business as small as mine to have a retail space. It wouldn't be possible to cover the cost of people working the shop and the bills, and even the rent alone would be too much for my business," Fox & Crow Paper Company’s Evan Neidich said. 

Daydream Shop is two years old, featuring vendors that sell art, jewelry, stained-glass pieces, candles, plants and vintage items. 

"We are all vendors, so we all set up in our 10x10’s and deal with the rain and deal with the market fees and everything," Shop The Genesis’s Lauralie Bradford said. "I think we've all wanted to have some sort of retail space for ourselves to have something we can call our own in St. Pete."

Brianne Gates, of ArtBGates, is one of the collective’s newest vendors, joining in May. She’s transitioning from a full-time job teaching to focus full-time on art. 

"It's really hard to do if you're only doing markets or relying on online sales, and being a part of a shop space has just been such a wonderful opportunity for me," Gates said. "Being in a shop gives you an opportunity to kind of see what sells and what doesn't sell, and trying to figure out what customers would like. Always being innovative and always producing is certainly a challenge, but it's also a wonderful opportunity to kind of get your artwork out there to meet people."

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In addition to the rent, the vendors split the responsibilities, from running the shop to cleaning the shop. 

"When you're looking at building a business, sustainability is a really important piece of it, " Neidich said. "In a city like ours where things are really happening and it's really exciting and prices are going up, the future of small business, I really believe, is collaboration."

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