Business - Business News

POSTED: Sunday, Jan. 04, 2009

Startups also play role in 2008 economy

There is one piece of business to take care of before closing the books on 2008, and it's actually a positive.

With our look-back on 2008 package last Sunday I wrote about the significant local business closures of last year, as well as business trends that affected this area. A reader pointed out to me that I should have also looked at the significant business openings of 2008, because it wasn't all bad news for this area.

That's a good point; sometimes I see so much of the negative impacts of an economic recession that the positive things that happened tend to get overlooked. While I counted 83 business closures last year, there were not only thousands of businesses in Whatcom County that stayed open, but hundreds of businesses that started up last year, adding jobs to the economy. Just like in business closures, there are no official statistics that I know of for 2008, but the number of openings is much more than the number of closures.

Each week we run Bellingham's business registrations in the paper, which usually tallies between 15 and 20 a week. Some of those are businesses that have changed addresses or are here on a temporary basis (such as an out-of-town construction company doing a project). Even if only five out of those 15 or 20 registrations are brand new businesses, that's more than 250 businesses a year just in Bellingham.

Looking back at 2008, most of the businesses that opened were small in scale, adding less than 10 employees. Some were significant in terms of geography; Greene's Corner at the intersection of Smith Road and Northwest Avenue, brought back the concept of the neighborhood grocery store. Il Caffe Rifugio on Mount Baker Highway near Deming was opened with the idea of being a local hangout, as well as a stopping off point for hikers and skiers. The tenants going into the Ferndale Station near downtown is bringing in more retail sales into a community that has been looking for ways to capture more retail revenue.

There were also businesses that opened that may lead to a more vibrant economy. The opening of the Toni & Guy Hairdressing Academy in Bellingham was one of the first established on the West Coast, drawing students from all over the region. There were also several situations where companies added new locations, such as Paperdoll and The Woods Coffee.

While there's too many to make a complete list, here's a look at some of the other businesses that opened in 2008, broken down by category:

Restaurants: The Copper Hog, Rosa's Ristorante & Pizzeria, CJ Wijins, Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen, QQ Li, Sehome Diner, Milagro Mexican Grill, Rustic Coffee Bar.

Grocery stores: La Gloria Market, Sehome Food.

Clothing/gifts: Plato's Closet, Swell, In8 Snow & Skate, No Gravity Board Skins, Little Tiger Toys, Bellingham Baby Company, Ideal, The Handmade Life.

Other categories: Jimmy's Personal Care, Room2Think, Desert Sun Tanning.