The City of Globe has made significant economic progress in the past six years, and empty storefronts are beginning to fill with a variety of new businesses and restaurants, creating a sought-after destination and giving residents access to a wider range of goods and services.
Efforts to clean up blight and beautify building facades are bearing fruit as entrepreneurs take advantage of opportunities created through programs designed to help open storefronts or online businesses in the community.
“We want to make Globe a place where people want to live,” says Globe Building Official Tony Manfredi. “We want to allow residents to stay here and have the things they want and need at their fingertips so they don’t have to move elsewhere to find them.”
Manfredi, a retired Phoenix firefighter who is now a Globe resident, was hired by the City in 2022 to update building codes to current standards. He says that sending a clear message to potential business owners that Globe is ready for their investment and by improving the development process provides opportunities for everyone to create a thriving business environment and show that the City is committed to economic growth and diversity.
Although change happens slowly in many cases, Manfredi has already seen improvements in the community’s appearance in the few years he has lived and worked in Globe, from fresh paint on revitalized businesses to blight removal on residential streets.
“Many people here like to use the elephant analogy,” he says. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. There’s a lot of catch-up to do here, but if we want to enhance the community for our citizens, these things have to occur.”
While establishing a ready-for-business development process is critical for growth, it is only one step in a process that can seem labyrinthine to people who just want to work for themselves.
Local business owner Sarah Alexander, co-owner of Pretty Kind Boutique and a coordinator for the Eastern Arizona College’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), sees the situation from many perspectives. As a small business owner, she must follow state and local policies/procedures. Still, she also understands the stress involved with taking a leap of faith and the need for help setting up shop, whether it is in a traditional “brick and mortar” or online.
“We are living in a post-COVID world where people are becoming more entrepreneurial in spirit because they lost their jobs or realized their employment was fragile,” Alexander says. “I’m noticing the people opening small businesses were at one time in a traditional form of employment, and now it seems like the trend in Globe is going to self-employment.”
The EAC SBDC is part of a national and statewide network of technical assistance providers that gives local small businesses the tools and training to be successful. It offers a wide range of services, from counseling to training.
The SBDC recently partnered with the Economic and Community Development Department (ECDD) in Globe to host its third Moonshot AZ event, allowing local entrepreneurs to develop and pitch ideas for their business plans. Prizes, provided by Freeport-McMoRan, ranged from $2,000 for the first-place winner, Cecilie Hudson of Round Mountain Baking Co. to $500 to Mandi Riddle for Lucky Girl Rabbitry. Hudson will move on to a finals competition in Cottonwood on August 2 to vie for a $10,000 overall prize.
But second place and a $1,000 prize went to Alexander’s business partner Erika Flores, for her proposal for Pretty Kind Minds, a business incubator for women the pair have set up in their store that they hope to expand. “We mentor them and teach them about looking at their profit and loss statements, teaching them how to advertise,” Alexander says. “We’re already doing that, but we want to expand that outside of the boutique.”
Through SBDC Alexander recently taught a week-long young entrepreneurs’ training camp for local high school students and hosts monthly meetings at the Gila Pueblo Campus on topics related to the business community. Her hope is that she can help ease the transition into business ownership by providing whatever support is available.
To accommodate entrepreneurs who may not want a brick-and-mortar storefront, the City is creating a virtual workspace and business incubator in the Michaelson building on Broad Street and has leveraged its relationship with the Rural Communities Assistance Corporation (RCAC) for much of the economic development work that has been done.
In addition to grants and planning to rehabilitate the building and create a modern virtual workspace, the City is part of a Capital Readiness Program in collaboration with the RCAC through the Department of Commerce. The program provides entrepreneurial training and assistance, both in “collaborative cohort”-based sessions and one on one training.
“It’s an opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs, face to face, but we also provide a lot of assistance virtually and through video calls,” says RCAC’s Dan Dever. “The cohort-based training sessions are an opportunity for us to tailor assistance to the community, where we conduct a process to survey prospective and current entrepreneurs to try to understand their needs.”
Dever says it is an opportunity for RCAC to “get on the ground and work directly with entrepreneurs and try to facilitate those connections to more accessible forms of capital to allow them to grow their business.”
Starting a business can be difficult, but sometimes, finding the right space can make it seem impossible. There may be empty storefronts, and given the historic nature of Globe’s Broad Street, rehabilitating a building to current standards while maintaining the historic appeal of Downtown can be a heavy—and expensive—lift.
That is why it is important to think beyond Broad Street to the other viable sectors of Globe along Highway 60 from the western boundary of the city to the east.
Local realtor Stacey Herrera Murry agrees.
“I understand the concept of talking about historic downtown Globe because it’s part of our charm and part of our niche and that’s why people are interested in coming here,” says Herrera Murry. “But there is also a whole commercial district that runs along the highway I think needs to be given credit.”
She is invested in both downtown and the highway corridor. She and her husband Ryan own a popular business in downtown Globe—Globe Gym—and her real estate office is on the highway. This fall, she expects to open a drive-through coffee shop on the highway.
After years of watching the local economy’s ups and downs, she is happy to see the uptick in local investment throughout the community.
She points to the recent sale of the old El Rey property to Erica and David Salinas. The couple, known for their food truck business, purchased the property and are in the process of renovating it to house a barbecue restaurant with outdoor seating and an expanded menu.
“When you see someone local doing that, you get a warm feeling in your heart,” says Herrera Murry.
“We started to do First Fridays, and we got too busy with our catering,” Salinas says. “Between that and word of mouth from the clients, it just kind of started blowing up and growing.”
The couple recently quit their “day jobs” and hope to have the building fixed up and ready to serve food by mid-September. Erica worked at Washington Federal Bank for 22 years and David was Safety Coordinator at the water treatment facility in Wheatfields for six years.
The process to realize their vision for the property ran into some bumps in the road but Salinas credits Melissa Steele with Globes’ Economic Development Department and Michelle Yerkovich, Code Enforcement for the city for helping to navigate the zoning and building codes.
“The City is making strides on so many fronts and it’s wonderful to see what’s happening in Globe,” says ECDD Director Linda Oddonetto. “The seeds that we planted several years ago are sprouting and coming to fruition, this is good for everyone in the community.”
Journalist, writer and editor who has worked for community newspapers for more than 15 years. After four years at Davis-Monthan AFB and a few years living in Tucson, moved to California to find his fortune. He is happy to be back in Arizona, in the mountains he loves.