Open For Business

Small business owners and entrepreneurs have a new home on Dixwell Avenue.

More than 100 residents and city officials gathered in the parking lot of Dixwell Plaza Tuesday to cut the ribbon on that home, the city’s new Small Business Academy.

The academy is part of an initiative created by Mayor Toni Harp’s administration to support new and developing small businesses. The academy offers office space, a central mailing address and reception services for a nominal fee.

Harp said she might have had the vision but it could not have come to fruition without Small Business Service Center (SBSC) Director Jackie James. Harp tapped James, a former alder and Democratic Town chairwoman, a year and a half ago to head up the center and the city’s small business initiatives. (Read about that here.)

“A lot of people didn’t think that this would happen,” Harp said to James (pictured inside the academy), ​“but you proved them wrong.”

Harp said while city officials are delighted to have major corporations like Alexion Pharmaceuticals, small businesses ​“are the foundation of an economically vibrant community” because small business are more likely to hire local workers and spend money in the local community.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (pictured) called small businesses ​“the engine of our community” and she said if people are serious about growing the economy and creating jobs, then investments in supporting small businesses is key.

“When small businesses succeed, Connecticut and this nation succeeds,” she said.

James, who since the inception of the center served as the sole employee of the center, said everything the organization has been able to accomplish, including providing classes for small business owners in the city, networking opportunities and launching a food truck festival, has been done with little more than the support of partners.

The Small Business Service Center is a comprehensive program that offers pre- and post technical support to New Haven’s small business owners. James said for the first time in the city’s history, the Small Business Service Center has partnered with SBDC, Score, SAMA, HEDCO and Yale University School of Managment to offer these comprehensive services, including the development of a resource guide for small businesses, which was unveiled Tuesday.

“What we discovered in May 2014 is that a lot of small businesses that clearly didn’t know where the resources were in the city of New Haven,” she said. ​“The guide will be a way to help small business owners navigate the system a little better.”

James said though the new academy is in the Dixwell neighborhood, it will be open three days a week as a resource for the whole city. The SBSC also has an office downtown at 200 Orange St., that James said she hopes will remain. (Read about James’ request for an administrative assistant here.) In addition to providing incubator space for small businesses, the academy also will work with entrepreneurs to access capital by providing information on credit, financial reporting, payroll, pricing methods, accounting, marketing and advertising.

City Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson (pictured) said that James had been tenacious in not only obtaining the resources she needed to make the SBSC a reality, she also had the vision for creating the academy the first time she saw the space on Dixwell Avenue.

He pointed out that though James’ background is not in business, she has not only learned the language of small business, but she has leveraged her skills as a local leader for the benefit of the city.

“She has brought skills to the table that are very, very necessary,” he said. ​“We are where we are in this city because capital has systematically been taken out of inner city America over the last 35 years. It takes local organization, local skills and local knowledge to bring [capital] back.

“It takes someone of Jackie’s skills in community organizing and understanding a neighborhood,” Nemerson said.