When school's out, do local businesses struggle?
By Drew Anne Scarantino
The bell above the door to PS Pumpkin
Seeds tinkles as two twenty-something women walk into the
store. Manager Siobian Lomax glances up from behind the counter and
breaks into a large smile and exclaims, "Welcome ladies.
Let me know if I can help you today." The women politely return her
greeting before heading towards the rear of the store. Lomax lowers her
eyes and says in much less cheery tone, "I hope they buy something. With
[Washington and Lee's] spring break coming up, God knows we'll need the
business."
Lexington, Virginia is a small historical college town, whose economy is driven mainly by students and tourism. But what happens when the approximately 3,500 Washington and Lee University students and Virginia Military Institute cadets head back home?
The economic cycle
Sammy Moore, Executive Director of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce, classifies Lexington’s economy as a cyclical series of ups and downs between students and tourists. In the winter months the economy suffers, he said, then drives back up in the spring mainly because of the Universities. Moore attributes the summer economy to tourism, creating a balancing act that makes autumn and the return of students huge economically.
“I used to say New Year’s Day was September 1,” said Moore. “Because that’s when the economy starts to change around here.”
Valerie Lotts also knows the cycle of Lexington’s economy. The manager of one of Lexington’s most popular downtown restaurants The Southern Inn, Lotts attributes the slow winter to the weather as well as the holidays and tax season causing people to use their expendable income less readily.
“Then, really, it’s funny, once the taxes are paid by April 15th, boom, we have more business,” said Lotts. “Then the next thing you know it kind of slides off the two weeks after W&L graduation and then it picks back up after that with the tourists. It slides off a bit again in August right before the students come back and then, once again, it picks right back up again.”
Lexington's lifestyle
Lexington residents often poke fun using the local joke that the benefit to students leaving is the increase in parking. But there is truth in the jibe. The streets really are emptier. And according to Lotts, the stores are stocked. "You know you can always go to the ABC store and find what you need,” she jokes.
But townspeople definitely notice the lack of students, and not just because of the increased parking and alcohol. "All of sudden it’s like wow, when they’re gone, they’re gone," said Moore.
Some businesses like the Daily Grind are successful even without the student population. ""It's not a huge decline when students leave, because then in the summer we have different camps and things that come into town that make up for it a bit," said Manager Jill Brashears. "But for the most part, it definitely helps having the students around."
But even without the institutes of higher learning, Lexington and the surrounding are has a lot to offer. The rich Civil War history, the Virginia Horse Center, the quality of life, two interstates, and four seasons are all things that Moore attributes to Lexington's popularity. "We’re lucky we have a lot of pieces to the puzzle that make us successful around here."
Surviving without the students
Opening a business on a corner in Lexington is much different from opening a store on a corner in Manhattan, said Moore. Because a lot of local stores can't always rely on frequent numbers in their stores despite students and tourists, most strive to gain business in other ways. “A lot of really successful businesses find a way to do what I call back door business," said Moore. "If it’s the internet, if it’s wholesale, if it’s catalogue or whatever."
Daily Grind manager
Jill Brashears puts out menus and sometimes e
ven
free coffee samples in the Visitor's Center as a way to gain extra
business in the summer. And lots of stores offer discounts and coupons
to attract tourists when the students aren't around.
But some stores just can't make it through without the students. Patsy Long of the Town and Country Cleaners said that the majority of the stores customers are students and there's not much the store can do in the summer to make up for the loss of business.
"When it's summertime and when the students are gone, we get really slow and we hardly do any business," said Long. "It cuts my hours back in the summer."
The cleaners don't get much business during the summer, except for a tourist in a laundry pinch here and there. "We carry through those couple of months and just hope for school to start back up," said Long.
Even Lexington restaurants don't always benefit fully from tourism. "The tourists that come in are not purchasing the bottles of wine or the higher end entrees," said Lotts. "They’re traveling, so they’ve got to watch their money." Whereas during the school year, Lotts said, the parents and students who do come in usually splurge.
"So you can really when [students are] gone in that a lot of the items that are going to be purchased are not the higher end items."
Such is the plight of owning a business in a college town. And with Washington and Lee's spring break fast approaching and summer for both colleges fast behind it, many business owners like Siobian Lomax are trying to make the most of these last weeks of the school year as best as they can.
Learn more about the
students' impact on local businesses
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Claudette Artwick
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd