MANCHESTER, NH – A group of downtown business owners and managers that have been working largely under the radar for months to reshape the city’s narrative is shining a light on the effort.
“We believe that now we’re at a time where, if we can’t continue to show the change and drive a new narrative of what downtown Manchester is, that we might not be able to succeed for that much longer,” said Nick Carnes, general manager of Shopper’s Pub, one of the organizers of the Downtown Manchester Collaborative.
Carnes formally introduced the group on Instagram Thursday morning.
“The biggest challenge we see is getting people to come back downtown,” Carnes told Ink Link Thursday.
Since the pandemic, nearly 90% of the businesses downtown are either new or under new ownership, he said.
“Ever since COVID, we’ve had the businesses leave, people are going online with their work, staying home,” Carnes said.
The collaborative began in March with a handful of restaurant owners who felt they weren’t connecting the way they should be. Forming the group would be a way to forge that connection and help drive a new narrative, collectively finding ways to get people to come downtown again.
The members see it as “commerce over competition.”
“We realized that we benefit better If we’re on the same page and we’re pushing for the same goals, and bettering what downtown Manchester looks like, than if we were just trying to fight against each other the entire time,” he said.
In the past eight months, it’s grown to nearly 100 members. It wasn’t private in the sense that it was restrictive, Carnes said. It was more that the privacy aspect allowed people to share “heartfelt stories” and what they were going through as business owners in a safe place.
“It was a very personal interaction that we were having with each other,” he said.
The group includes all kinds of business, including retail and restaurants and bars.
“I think that competition is natural when it comes to owning your own business,” he said. “But from the experiences that we’ve had, that competition idea has kind of faded, and we really are looking at more of a ‘teamwork makes the dream work’ kind of mentality with the people that are in downtown and have invested in downtown. We realize that if we’re not working together, we’re never going to be able to succeed.”
The major focus is on working together.
“When we have 100 voices that are pushing for the same goal…there is nothing better that we can ask for.” That shared goal is to better the perception of the downtown’s environment.
“I think everyone has their own perception of what they believe Manchester is, and we’re just here to drive the narrative of what it really is. We’re taking perceptions from 130,000 people who live here, and the perception from outside of Manchester when it comes to Bedford and Hooksett and Goffstown, and all we’re trying to do is change whatever their perception is to what the reality is.”
He said that reality is “a safe, walkable downtown city with a growing environment that has an economic future to really sustain what Manchester should be in the eyes of the people that are opening the businesses here.”
The strategy of the group is to collectively be involved, work together and show downtown in a good light. It has piggy-backed on downtown events this year to help drive its positive narrative.
The biggest, Carnes said, was Granite State Comic Con, hosted by Double Midnight Comics, which was held in September at SNHU Arena. The Downtown Manchester Collaborative showed the thousands of people Comic Con bought to town “that all of downtown supports the event that they’re here for.”
He said, “That support for them just overflowed what we were looking at for the city.”
The collaborative also had a “big push” with Taco Tour in May, hosted by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce. At downtown trick-or-treating Saturday, “we had more businesses this year than we have in the past, just to come out and hand out candy to the kids,” Carnes said.
“It’s just showing what our sense of community really is, in a city that’s the largest city north of Boston. And I don’t believe that many other cities of our magnitude are creating the collaboration that we’re creating, just by sitting down and talking with each other,” Carnes said.
The group is nonpolitical and not a government-oriented group; it’s completely free to participate and offers a chance for business owners to share ideas on their vision for downtown. They have also launched a website, wheretonextmanchester.com, which is live right now. Carnes said they intend to develop and market the site to locals and visitors alike as a way to connect consumers with the many existing businesses – and future ones – that make the city special.
“We just want to see the city we’ve invested in continue to grow,” he said. “Ultimately, when the city continues to grow, and we can drive a narrative that we’re a very safe, local, lovable city, we succeed in the end.”
If you’re a downtown business owner or manager interested in getting involved, email Nick Carnes at shoppersnick@gmail.com.