Lexington, KY - Opening a business can be like climbing Mt. Everest for entrepreneurs. Between figuring out who they need to deal with first, what permits they need to get and in what order to get them, sometimes it feels like would-be business owners would need a Sherpa to guide them successfully through the process.
Until now, those looking to open up shop in Lexington's downtown often had to fly blind, like Robert Garrison did when he and his business partner, Chris Heflin, opened the Chase Tap Room.
"We just had to do all the legwork ourselves, and we would get conflicting information from the different groups," said Garrison, who previously had an effort to open a bar in Chevy Chase fall through because of the amount of hoops he had to jump through.
"We had gone forward and done a conceptual layout, we had gone through all of our research into what we were going to need to do, we had an agreement with someone to rent a parking lot from them," Garrison said of the location on Ashland between Maxwell and High. "We had luckily not signed the lease. It was actually the landlord that, because of all the difficulties that we were going to have to go throughÖ, just pulled out and said he didn't want to do a bar because it was too difficult."
But now business owners both looking to start a business or make changes to an existing one can expect more guidance, through help from Diane Bonfert of the Lexington Downtown Development Authority (DDA).
"We definitely want to make sure they get the information before they start," said Bonfert, who has spent time meeting with all the parties a business owner would have to deal with to get permitted to open. As a result, she has complied a nine-page pamphlet to act as a map. "We don't want them buying a building (or signing a lease) and then realizing that what they want to do isn't possible in that area."
Through the process of establishing the trail, Bonfert said she discovered a lot of potential business owners apparently have given up. "A lot of people will start the process," she said. "Ö There's a large number of business licenses that are applied for that when they go back the following year, they've never followed through or they never actually opened their business," she said.
Garrison said the rough patches they experienced trying to establish their business in Chevy Chase made them a little more prepared a year and a half later when they decided to go at it again, this time successfully opening at Victorian Square.
"I don't know that it was more streamlined, but we'd already learned our lessons from Chevy Chase," he said. "It would certainly help to have a check list. 'Go here then go here;' I've been back and forth to agencies in the wrong order."
While Bonfert said she's found that the process can be confusing and frustrating for people to go through, as it was for her to compile the packet, but she said the people who business owners have to deal with along the way aren't out to make it tough.
"Every person on this list is more than willing to work with anybody," she said. "A lot of them say, 'Have them call us and we'll meet them on site and we'll look at their property before they buy it or lease.'"
Bonfert and the DDA will act to point business owners in the right direction, not to help them deal with the agencies themselves. "Our office will be kind of a resource; I won't be working with them with building inspection, but I will let them know who they need to talk to in building inspection," she said.
But that kind of guidance would have been welcome to Garrison when he opened his bar this past summer, and he said he will utilize the DDA when going through the process again.
The packet of information, A Guide for New and Expanding Businesses, is available at the DDA's office and will be placed on its Web site, Lexingtondda.com, according to Bonfert.
"All of these things are not in place to make it difficult (to open a business), they're in place to keep the occupants safe, to keep the owner safe, to make sure you're not doing something that could maybe come back litigation-wise on you," she said.